Successful Macarons!

Yesterday, after trying three times and failing all three times, I finally made a GREAT batch of chocolate macarons!

This is what happened (following a recipe I haven't attempted before. This was different to the green (pineapple-avo) ones, which were also different to the pink (lychee) ones):

The first time, I cracked ALL of them in 2 minutes, they had no feet, and they were under cooked inside. So I thought, OVEN TEMPERATURE must have been too high.

The second time, I lowered the temperature a little and this time followed one advice which was not to rest them (contrary to every other macaron advice) and to cook them straight after piping, and to make sure they bake for about 25 minutes. In the end of that, some cracked (not all), a few developed feet, but they turned out like meringue cookies i.e. they just crumbled when bitten into rather than have the crisp followed by chewiness.

The third time, I used a different recipe, one which I was more familiar with - the one I used to do the lychee ones. I rested them, put the temperature even lower, and placed one baking tray above and one below my macaron tray and cooked for 20 minutes. The end? Same result as the second time, except the center was chewier and less crumbly.

After the third time, I was tempted to bake again. However whilst making the butter cream I got tired, and thought I'd sleep on it and just bake the next day (which was today). While I was in bed, I kept thinking about what I've been doing wrong. I basically fell asleep thinking about macarons.

But I got it - Thinking about the times I made them previously and succeeded, compared to last night.... I HAVEN'T BEEN FOLDING THE BATTER RIGHT. And I remember being very cautious with the folding (aka macaronage) and I even intentionally folded much less compared to normal because I remember reading so much about how easy it was to over fold.

zomggggggggg as soon as I realised this I couldn't wait to wake up the next day and start baking again.

I did exactly that this afternoon (woke up so late because I went to bed at 4 -_-).

I was careful with my macaronage (even tested the consistency), piped the little babies, and laid them out to rest.

TIP* If your piped buttons have nipples when you pipe them, and they won't flatten after tapping the trays against the bench tops, they need more folding!

Up close:

As you can see on the photo, if some of them still show a wittle bitty bit of nipple, it's still good. Just know that you should get worried when they become too runny and flattened way too much way too early.

The result from the right macaronage, the right temperature for 25 minutes and resting:

Cute macarons... with feet and uncracked!! :3 yaayyyyy

And I made salted caramel butter cream fillings, once assembled, they look like this

Yayyy mee!!! They look so cute and taste yummmmooooo B)

Practice does make perfect :)