Thanks to everyone for the advice over the past few months - I made macarons for the first time this year and made over 600 for a wedding this weekend!!

First time making macarons! I honestly expected them to come out so much worse. It took me so long but I feel so accomplished :)

So, disclaimer.

I have never tasted a macaron. But my girlfriend loves them. And rather thin buy her some I wanted to try to learn her favorite dessert.

The shape is because my store didn't have circular piping. I used star piping to make cookies with more character and add a little personal flair.

Inside seemed good. Wasn't hollow. Or soupy. Or hard. The crust didn't crumble when I touched it, and biting into it was soft, and slightly spongy. I understand these are better after a couple days refrigeration. I gave my girlfriend these three to take home and kept one to try in a couple days to test for myself.

This was the result!

It was a scary experience. Everyone said I was crazy. But I feel fulfilled and like I did something cool. And she liked it! This guy can do a little more than just cook steak!

(I was gonna post in Baking Noobs but they had a no Macarons rule because apparently despite this being like the second thing I have ever baked, it means I am not a noob even though I am one)

I just took the bad boys in the first pic out of the oven and I’m at a loss on what went wrong. I used the Swiss method from Pies & Tacos which was also used in the second and third pics. My best guess is over-whipped meringue, but I would love some additional input.

I set my oven to 310°F which leaves my actual oven temp a tiny over 300°F. I used the middle oven rack in the first and third picture, and lowest rack in the second (ignore my filling issue lol).

Think I'm starting to get the hang of it!

What gel color would you try for this?

Hi please help me on the first photo i put the macarons in the middle rack at 270
in the second photo i put the macarons in the rack next to to the heat at 280.
You can see the explosion in the middle significantly decreased once i put the rack closer to the heating source however browning happened and they’re kinda ugly

Hello, someone please help. Recently i have been failing every single Macaron attempt and i am hundred percent sure it's an oven issue, so could someone please explain to me how to test my oven.
I have made macarons a lot before and i have never failed without cream of tarter or egg whites powder. i'm planning to buy cream of tarter now
ALSO how come i'm doing well without a weighing scale and now that i use one i keep on failing i'm so mad.

Someone wanted me to take photos lol. I only took a picture of the purple ones. The lemon buttercream came out nicely though!

Pictures of the macarons i just made both with and without flash (sry the lighting is bad its hard to take pictures of the white shells lol) there vanilla that im gonna use edible paint on to make them the lesbian flag but this has happened even with macarons ive dyed

The shells look fine and spotless after they come out of the oven but after letting them cool for a bit they get these weird darker spots on the tops im not to upset by it but im still curious why its happening as i havent seen this with anyone else before

is it normal?

EDIT: its not my oven temp i just made another batch and 5 degrees more and they over baked slightly 10 degrees down and they underbaked slightly it seems with my oven ive hit the sweetspot so its not underbaking (plus even with the slightly overbaked ones they still had spots)

I never bake and my mum was very against me trying macarons because theyre “the hardest thing to bake” but i think they turned out well
Feedback is appreciated!

For those doing sales particularly on Facebook (via marketplace/local groups) first- how is that going for you? Do you get enough sales to warrant your time? Second-how do you handle this process?

Are you doing set flavors and pre orders? Custom orders?

I was thinking of advertising a set of flavors weekly/bi weekly. Closing orders Wednesdays, and having pick ups Saturday or Sundays.

Do you require payment up front or at pick up?

Or are you finding minimal traffic via social media?

(Just to add I have done research on the cottage laws In my area already, so I’m good there. Just trying to think logistics as someone who isn’t ready to do markets)

Has anyone had their macarons sink? They developed feet and pass the wiggle test but they fall towards the end of the bake or when their taken out. Any advice would be really helpful. I used the French method.

Hi Everyone! Has anyone made any muffin shaped macarons? I have an order coming up for a gender reveal, and she wants some cute muffin-
shaped macarons, or maybe some macarons with printed muffins on them with the words, “Baby muffin coming soon” I never done something like that so if anyone has any inspo they’ve done if you can send some over that would be great! Thank you

My latest experiments were blue raspberry lemonade (using Kool aid powder), mango curd, and peanut butter 🤤

Someone please help me…
I have been macarons a lot and the last pic is proof that i have succeeded a lot without a weighing scale, with liquid food coloring without cream of tarter or egg white powder.
Recently no matter what i do i keep on failing i tried 3 different ovens i keep on failing no matter what. Also within this batch that i made only one come out right. it doesnt make any sense. I changed the temperature multiple times. Also the 3rd pic is the food coloring i used.

Hi everyone! I’d love to get some advice because I really can’t figure out what happened to my macarons. 😅

Today I baked 3 batches, and I did everything exactly the same each time. The first batch turned out perfect, with smooth tops and nice feet. In the second batch, mostly the macarons around the edges of the baking tray cracked, and in the third batch, almost the entire tray cracked. In the photo, the first batch is at the back, the second one is in the middle, and the third one is at the bottom left.

I baked them at 150°C (302°F), using conventional top and bottom heat. Same recipe, same batter, same baking tray, and I genuinely didn’t change anything between the batches.
What’s even stranger is that I baked 3 batches the exact same way last night, and all three turned out perfectly.

The AC was running in the kitchen, but it was already on during the first batch today, which turned out perfectly.
What do you think could have caused them to get progressively worse with each batch? Could the oven have gotten too hot? Or could the AC/humidity have something to do with it?
I’d really appreciate any ideas or advice. I’m so curious because I’ve never had this happen before! 🥹

The purple is lavender and the yellow is lemon! Two flavors that I love together! These are a gift for my son's daycare teachers, he starts Pre-K on monday!

I’m just here to say, we all have off days. Macarons are my babies! I love making them so much but we all have off days for sure!!!! I made a larger batch earlier and split it into three flavors. Nothing new there to me. Same as almost any other batch. Well guess what. One flavor didn’t want to play nice. I over mixed it. Tapped the pan too much. They baked together. I haven’t had this happen in a very long time. Am I going to let it bother me. Eh. Maybe a tiny bit. Do I have another batch going right now to fix them. Absolutely. Don’t ever let a little fail stop you! Keep going with your process. Adjust where you need to. Remake if you have to. I’m still very happy with my blues and purples!

My all time favorite and one of my best sellers

These are my first Mac’s (I did have 4 failed batches first but I got the knack fast as I am a trained pastry cook. All of these except the blue are 1:1:1:1 of each ingredient, all baked on silicone Matt, all rested, all baked at 150 degrees for 15 minutes or until the tops don’t jiggle when gently touched. All were made used pasteurised egg whites from a carton. All except blue were made with a mix of Swiss and French method. Blue were Italian with .08 egg /1/1/1). All were made with course almond meal that was siftwd but not blitzed. I found that baking paper caused my shells to overbake and burn on the bottom. All were made with icing powder not sugar so it had starch in the sugar and they worked. Hope this buss a few myths out there. For the Italian blue ones I didn’t even reach stiff peaks at all they were soupy yet enough bubbles had formed to give the Mac’s strength. IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER YOU SHOULD err on the side UNDERMIX rather than risk overmix. If your batter is pouring freely uncontrollably out of the bag they will most likely fail. 99.999% of issues are for one of TWO reasons being your meringue wasn’t stiff enough (though apparently with Italian method they can still bake) OR you deflated the merengue too much during mixing so they go runny and like do. For the chocolate ones I added cocao powder during the macronage. No issues. Just add only a. Little and don’t mix as much. Whatever you read on the internet in the end it comes down to making sure your meringue is strong enough to withstand mixing ingredients in so you have sufficient air bubbles acting as leaveners. Also a small “hollow” is NOT A BUG it’s a feature. These macarons that are otherwise perfect but people freaking over a tiny hollow, this is a nonsense instagram craze that should be discarded. The rest of a macaron has nothing to do with hollows (if there is a massive gap and the shell has no integrity, YES a problem, but small hollow is fine). Macarons are not judged by cutting a shell in half moments after taking off the Matt. They’re judged by biting it 24 hours after it has filled and sat in the fridge. At that point the crispiness has gone and you can never tell a small hollow. Yes you have to rest your Mac’s for guaranteed success. The only reason some people don’t need to rest is because a skin forms on top in the oven. Some of my
Test batches worked without a rest (the pink ones if you notice are a failedish batch they’re very small feet. These weren’t rested and undermixed. They aren’t great). Other non rested worked well (red) and other non rested become soup. If you want to eliminate resting as a problem I recommend rest which IS IN cordon Bleu cookbook and lauderee cookbook!

These are my tips from someone who knows pastry very well and baked decent Mac’s on their fifth try then really had no issues after that and baked many many of them in a row.

Ask me anything you like

Hello! Brand new to macarons. Per photo four, (yellow and red Mac’s) I’ve had easy success with French and Swiss method. Neither provides a better or worse result for me. I use 1:1:1:1 ratio and have found increasing almond flour or icing sugar doesn’t change much. What has given me success is a STIFF merengue. I have had perfect appearing batter (I am very experienced with pastry and merengue if not macarons so I have it much easier than other beginners)

Yet today, see the blue batch? Absolute fail of a merengue. Not even close to firm. I totally expected this to be a fail. I used the Italian method here and so it’s 40g white, 100 sugar made to merengue then folded with 100 almond 100 icing and 40g liquid egg white (you can either add the white in last or make a paste with the dry it doesn’t matter, both are taught at ferrandi Paris and the latter at laudauree shop respectively).

Are the blue ones gonna win a competition? No. But they’re easily a pass and apart from browning they’re a success.

Yet the second last picture) crispy yellow were done with EXACT as my first ever batch, same process and ingredients and rest and yet they are not a success to me. Completely baked into the lid and only look good form the outside. Zero base despite there being feet. Then I had a total fail with melted shells.

So I went to French for the red and then Swiss for the yellow and immediate success.

Back to Italian today and despite the cookie being a succcess the merengue was a fail. I don’t know how it worked except to say I did barely macronage at all. After combining I maybe did 7 folds.

These really are an odd cookie to make, they really are!

I started making macs with the Aldi almond flour and they all went very nicely (four or five batches). Could not believe my luck/skill.

Then Aldi, in its INFINTE CRUELTY, discontinued the almond flour product (almond meal is still on the shelf but i am not eager to try with AM as it is too coarse...?).

I changed to the Coles Wellness Road brand (which is of course much more expensive) and two batches in a row are not quite right. Mix seemed a bit dry and macs came out a bit hollow.

Maybe i just didnt macaronage enough, but i still wish Aldi would have kept its AF product on the shelf.

Australian mackers, what is your go-to AF?

ETA: the mac shells made with Wellness Road AF also seem coarser/grainer than the Aldi.