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Room temp, not straight from the fridge.
Make sure there’s zero yolk in the whites; even a speck of fat/oil will prevent your meringue from whipping up properly.
ALMOND FLOUR
Prepare: 2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper (or silpats); large piping bag fitted with a 0.5” round tip (see Wilton tip 1A or 12), ready to be filled (set up in a tall glass).
Make dry mix: Sift almond flour and powdered sugar together 3x. Set aside.
Make meringue: Using a stand or hand mixer, whip egg whites (and cream of tartar, if using) on medium-high speed just until foamy. Slowly, while whipping, pour in granulated sugar ⅓ at a time, with 30 seconds of whipping in between each addition. Once sugar is added, whip meringue on medium-high speed to stiff, glossy peaks (see Notes: Meringue), 10-15 minutes. (If adding gel coloring, do it near the end, once you’re close to stiff peaks.)
Combine dry and wet: Add dry mix to meringue ⅓ at a time, by hand, gently cutting in with a flexible rubber spatula to incorporate each addition before adding more.
Macronage: Once all ingredients are incorporated, begin macronage. This is not the same as stirring or mixing: It is a specific technique that involves cutting and smearing with a spatula (see Notes: Macaronage). Macronage just until you get an unbroken flowing ribbon for 7-8 seconds where you’re able to draw 4-5 figure 8s before the ribbon breaks (see Notes: Texture/Consistency).
Pipe shells: Fill piping bag with batter. Pipe shells 1.5-2” in diameter, evenly spaced 2” apart: Hold piping bag perpendicular (at a 90° angle) to the baking sheet, with the tip ½” off the surface. Pipe from the center (imagine a target; pipe from the bullseye), letting the batter spread into a circle. Do not swirl or move your piping bag; do not start from the outer edge. When the circle reaches 1.5-2” in diameter, simply lift the piping bag away and pipe the next one. If you have macaronaged correctly, the little peak from “liftoff” will smooth out on its own.
Bang pans: Once shells are piped, bang each pan on the counter 3-4x so air pockets rise to the surface. Break any larger pockets with a toothpick. After banging, the tops of the shells should be perfectly smooth and glossy, with no peaks or tracks from piping (see Notes: Texture/Consistency).
Rest shells: Let shells rest at room temp for 30-60 minutes (see Notes: Baking Directions) until the tops are matte, not glossy, and if you very gently touch one with your fingertip it doesn’t stick. (This is called forming the “skin.”)
Bake (see Notes: Baking Directions) one tray at a time. Let shells cool completely before removing from trays to fill. Macarons are best after maturing (filled, stored in airtight container) in the fridge 12-24 hours, so the filling sinks into the shells to soften them.
Finely ground
METHODS
There are 3 primary methods for making macarons: French, Swiss, and Italian.
French and Swiss are the easiest and most similar to each other. They’re generally interchangeable: You can make a French method recipe using the Swiss method without changing any ingredient ratios and vice versa.
The French method is the most basic: You make a standard meringue using raw egg whites and sugar, and that’s the base structure for your batter. Benefit: super easy, and very hard to over-whip your meringue. Drawback: raw-egg meringue is slightly less stable than warmed/cooked-egg meringue.
The Swiss method is one step more complicated: You make a Swiss meringue, which involves warming the egg whites and sugar over a double boiler, then proceeding as usual. Cooking the egg-sugar syrup makes a strong, stable meringue (less volume than French, but silkier). Some people swear by it; I found it less consistent than French.
The Italian method is another step more complicated: You mix part of the egg whites into the dry mix to make a paste. Then you make an Italian meringue, which involves cooking sugar and water into a hot syrup and drizzling it into the egg whites to instantly cook them while whipping. Professionals tend to prefer this method; it’s the most reliable, and the hot sugar syrup makes for ultra-shiny, ultra-smooth shells. However, it’s definitely more of a hassle.
Whichever method you use is up to you. Having tried all three, I prefer French; it’s easy, consistent (once you get the basics down), and just works best for me.
MERINGUE
Stiff peaks: Stiff peaks = meringue clumps up in a ball around the whisk while whipping; when you lift the whisk out of the meringue, it forms a stiff, straight “beak” without any droop. Watch videos demonstrating stiff peaks. It is very hard to know when you’ve hit the right consistency if you haven’t seen it in a video.
The stiffness of your meringue depends on your method. The French method requires very stiff peaks; the Italian method requires stopping the moment you reach relatively stiff peaks.
MACARONAGE
Again: Watch videos. Written descriptions will never be as helpful as videos demonstrating proper technique. Watch videos from multiple bakers to get a full sense of the technique, how long it takes, what consistency to look for, etc.
Macaronage is the process of pressing air out of the macaron batter until it reaches the ideal consistency.
“So first I whip all that air into the meringue, then I press it right back out?” Yes.
“Can’t I just whip the meringue less in the first place?” No. The stiff meringue forms your base structure. Starting with a soft meringue will not give the same result as a stiff meringue which is then deflated.
Macaronage is different from stirring or mixing. It uses cutting and smearing motions, generally in a J-shape: Cutting down through the center of the batter (stem of the J), then smearing batter against the side of the bowl (hook of the J). As you smear, you’ll hear a faint crackling, like soap foam, as the tiny air bubbles break.
Use a flexible rubber spatula, not a wooden spoon or any other utensil. (I’ve done macaronage in a stand mixer on low, but it’s VERY easy to overmix.)
TEXTURE/CONSISTENCY
Watch videos, for the love of god.
Pre-piping: When you lift the spatula a few inches high, the batter should slowly, evenly flow back into the bowl in a smooth, unbroken ribbon for 7-8 seconds. (This texture is often compared to flowing lava, or honey.) If the ribbon looks grainy or lumpy, or breaks after only 3-4 seconds, the batter is undermixed and needs a few more smears. If it keeps flowing forever, or dribbles quickly like soup, it is overmixed.
You should be able to draw 4-5 figure 8s without the ribbon breaking. Watch the figure 8s: They should dissolve smoothly back into the batter within 10-15 seconds. If they hold their shape too long, the batter is too thick (undermixed). If they disappear immediately like soup, the batter is too thin (overmixed).
Start checking (ribbon and figure 8s) early. Undermixing can be fixed; overmixing can’t.
Macaronage generally takes about 4-5 minutes, but it really depends. Don’t go by time; go by senses and frequent testing.
The batter will also look glossy/shiny once you’re at the right consistency (it starts out matte).
Post-piping: After piping, the shells should only spread out a tiny bit, enough to make the tops perfectly smooth. If they don’t smooth out, and you can still see the tracks/peaks from piping: undermixed. If they spread out wide and thin: overmixed.
BAKING DIRECTIONS
If using parchment paper, I recommend testing these two baking methods:
Oven shower method: Rest piped shells for just 20 minutes (or try not resting at all). Preheat oven to 275°. Put a tray of shells in the oven, with the door cracked open, for 2 minutes. Close the door. Set the temp to 315°. Bake 15-16 minutes.
Standard method: Rest piped shells for 30-60 minutes (or just until matte skin forms). Preheat oven to 315°. Bake one tray at a time for 13-14 minutes.
If using silpat: Rest piped shells for 25-35 minutes. Preheat oven to 315°. Bake one tray at a time for 13-15 minutes.
Because parchment paper is so thin, the centers of the shells will heat and rise quickly. At higher oven temps (anything above 300°), this might cause the centers to break through the tops, resulting in volcano-like cracks. The oven shower method “quick-dries” the tops for ultra-smooth, shiny shells, then raises the oven temperature slowly over the first half of the bake, so the centers and tops rise in tandem.
The oven shower method is especially helpful for humid climates, where resting on the counter may not sufficiently dry out and mattify the shells.
With silpats (silicon mats), because the mat is thicker and conducts heat more slowly, the centers of the shells will generally not hit peak rise until the second half of the bake. If the tops rise and set much faster, they’ll leave the centers behind and cause hollows. So, try resting the shells for only 25-30 minutes, so the tops will stick to the centers (instead of drying/crisping fully) and rise in tandem.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The nature of macarons is that there’s a solid chance none of this will work in your kitchen. Some people only find success baking at 300° for 20 minutes. Some people bake at 325° or higher for 8-10 minutes. It will almost certainly take trial and error to find what works for your oven and kitchen. Read multiple recipes, see what other people are doing, and test things out.
BAKE TEMP/TIME
Macaron recipes will give you an oven temp of anywhere from 270-350° and a bake time of anywhere from 8-25 minutes. What works for you depends entirely on your oven and the atmosphere in your kitchen (dry, humid; warm, cool, etc.). You just have to test things out. Treat any given macaron recipe as a jumping off point.
Bake on the middle rack. You don’t want your oven’s heat source too close to the tops or bottoms of the shells.
Temp too low: If your oven temp is too low, the shells will not firm and crisp up fast enough, causing them to collapse into the soft, moist centers; this results in wrinkly, oily-looking tops. (Wrinkly tops can also be caused by under-whipped meringue, over-macaronaged batter, or anything else that makes the shells too dense/wet.)
Temp too high: If your oven temp is too high, the “skin” of the shells will rise and set much faster than the centers, resulting in hollow shells. (Hollows can also be caused by over-whipped meringue, under-macaronaged batter, or anything else where there’s too much air in the batter.) You’ll also get browned bottoms and a hard, crunchy texture that doesn’t go away with maturation.
I have a big, non-convection, standard US oven. For me, baking at any temp below 310° = wrinkly tops, without fail. It doesn’t matter how perfect my batter is, how long the shells rest, how long I bake for—if the oven temp is below 310°, the shells will come out wrinkly. If the temp is over 320°, I get browned shells, permanent hollows, and overly crunchy texture. I have found the most consistent temp + time for my oven is 315° for 13-14 minutes. This results in shells that sometimes have small hollows, but the hollows are greatly reduced/eliminated after maturing 24 hours. During maturation, the filling sinks into the shells (osmosis) and the shell texture changes to a soft, creamy chewiness, with a crisp, hair-thin skin, but no brittleness or crunch.
What you’re looking for: A temperature hot enough to create tall feet (the ruffle at the bottom of the shell) that don’t spread outward—only uniformly straight upward. The feet should peak in height at the halfway point of your bake time, then fall/settle slightly during the second half of the bake. A tall, slow, even rise + second-act fall tends to result in full, creamy, chewy shells with perfect feet, vs.:
Fast rise (likely hollow)
Low/short or very slow rise (overmixed, too dense)
Spread or overly fluffy feet (batter issues; too much air)
Tiny feet (undermixed batter, meringue issues)
“Volcano” cracking or high domes (oven too hot or heat source too close to the bottom of the shells, causing centers to rise faster than tops)
INGREDIENT RATIOS
Just about every macaron recipe is different—not just in method (French, Swiss, Italian) but in the basic ratios of the 4 ingredients! Some have a lower ratio of meringue to dry mix (wet:dry); some will be closer to 1:1:1:1; some have less granulated sugar and more powdered sugar to make up for it, etc. Again: It depends on your method, kitchen, atmosphere, preferences, etc. There is no standard.
FILLING/FLAVORING
Fill macarons with flavored buttercreams, ganache, or anything else you want (as long as it will set and not melt; whipped cream is not a good bet). Pipe buttercream circles and fill the centers with jam, curd, chocolate, caramel, etc. There are a million lists of fun and funky macaron flavors to try.
Generally, flavor should come from the filling, not the shells; the shells are too finicky to handle more than maybe 1 tsp/5g of dry flavoring such as cinnamon or other spices, matcha or espresso powder, ground tea leaves, etc.