French Macarons

4.69 from 22 votes

This easy french macaron recipe includes a step-by-step tutorial and troubleshooting guide on how to make perfect french macarons, every time!

Prep Time20

Cook Time20

cooling time30

Total Time1 10

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: French

Servings: macarons

Calories: 79kcal

Author: Sophia Assunta

Equipment

Kitchen Scale
Standing Mixer with a Whisk Attachment or Hand Held Mixer with large bowl
Flour Sifter
Pastry Bags with Large Piping Tip
Heavy Duty Baking Sheets
Rubber or Silicone Spatula
Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper
Toothpick or Scribe

Ingredients

French Macarons

4 ounces fine almond flour 115g
8 ounces powdered sugar 230g
5 ounces egg whites 144g (4-5 eggs)
2 1/2 ounce sugar 72g
2 tsp vanilla extract or the scrapings of 1 vanilla bean
1/2 tsp kosher salt 2 g
gel food colors optional

Filling of Choice - examples:

Instructions

Prep:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, making sure your oven rack is in the middle.
Prepare a pastry bag with a medium sized tip. My favourite method to do this is to put the pastry bag with the tip into a large cup, folding the edges of the bag over the edges of the cup to allow for easy filling with the macaron batter.
Put your slipmat or parchment on a baking sheet.
Set up your standing mixer with a whisk attachment, or prepare a large bowl and hand held mixer. Make sure your bowl is clean and dry, with no remnants of oil in it from previous use.

Measure your ingredients:

Measure almond flour and powdered sugar. After measuring sift together and set aside.
Measure egg whites, making sure to get no yolk in the whites
Measure sugar

Make and Bake:

Add egg whites, sugar, and salt into the bowl of your standing mixer. If using vanilla bean instead of extract, add now as well
Turn on medium to medium high speed and whip about 5-7 minutes, until stiff peaks form and the egg whites start to clump in/around the middle to the beater.
Once they start to clump, stop mixing and add vanilla extract and optional food colors
Beat again until everything is combined. Try not to beat too much so that they start to break or get grainy.
Remove bowl from mixer and add the sifted almond flour/powdered sugar mix
Macaronge the batter with either a flexible spatula or large spoon. You’ll want to mix until the powdered sugar mixture is fully incorporated into the egg whites, so take extra care to scrape the bottom of the bowl. Some say it takes about 50 strokes and will look like honey or lava when finished. It should not be too thin or watery, that means you’ve overmixed it.
Fill your prepared pastry bag with macaron batter and when you’re ready to start piping the macarons, push the batter all the way down to the tip and twist the top to prevent the batter from spilling out the top.
Start piping your macarons about 1.5 inches in diameter. If you’ve have pre-drawn circles, fill until almost to the edges as they will spread a bit.
Once you've filled your tray, tap it hard on the counter to bring up any air bubbles. Turn 180 degrees and tap again. Then pop any air bubbles with a toothpick or scribe.
Put in the oven and turn the temperate down to 300 ℉. Bake 17-19 minutes until you can lift the macaron without it sticking or the start to brown around the edges and top.
Remove from oven and let rest until fully cooled.
Once cooled, match the macaron shells by size and fill with filling of choice. You can eat right away, or let mature in the fridge a few days until they get to the desired consistency.

Notes

Because macarons can be tricky at first, I recommend reading through the entire post before you start the recipe.
Be sure to measure out all your ingredients using a kitchen scale. With macarons, it’s very helpful to have exact measurements.
Make sure there are no traces of egg yolk in the egg whites and the bowl for the egg whites is very clean. Any oil can cause the egg whites to not whip up properly.
If adding food coloring, use gel or powdered food coloring as it will alter the consistency less than regular food coloring.
Skip food coloring and flavors/extracts if you’re just starting out. It makes it easier to get the hang of making macarons and most of the macaron flavor comes from the filling anyway.
If you’re using parchment and want consistent size circles, take a 1 inch cookie cutter and trace circles onto parchment with a pen or pencil, about 1.5-2 inches apart. Flip upside down on top of another piece of parchment (so the pencil or ink doesn’t stain your baking sheet). Then pipe on the circles.
Put the pastry bag with tip in a large cup with the edges folded over the cup as shown in a picture above. This is an easy way to fill the pastry bag with macaron batter without making a mess.
If you’re new to macarons, watch a few videos on macaronage as linked above. This is really helpful to ensure you’re mixing the batter to the right consistency.
Don't forget to tap the pan of piped macarons and pop any air bubbles. If you forget it can cause cracks in the macarons when baking.
If you have issues with the shells cracking when they bake, try resting the macarons shells. Resting means you let the piped macarons sit for 20-30 minutes before you bake them, allowing the tops of the macarons to form a bit of a shell. They're ready to bake when you can gently touch the shells without it sticking to your finger.
Let the baked shells cool completely before trying to remove from a silpat. Removing them before they’ve cooled can cause the macarons to stick.
If the macaron shells are hard after baking, fill and let sit in the fridge a few days. This is called maturing, and it will soften them up as the moisture from the filling spreads to the shell.

Nutrition