The Ultimate Guide to Making Macarons

It’s not hard to understand why. The perfect specimen is a wonder: Utterly smooth, elegantly puffed meringues (often called “shells”), with an eggshell finish and a frilly “pied,” or “foot,” rimming the bottom, hold a satiny filling. Take a bite, and the wafer-thin crust gives way to the supple chew of the meringue while the filling—perhaps chocolate ganache, buttercream, or fruit curd—delights with a burst of flavor.

Despite the fact that the shells require just four ingredients—egg whites, almond flour, granulated sugar, and confectioners’ sugar—achieving this ideal can be tricky. If the batter is too airy, the shells may bake up cracked, tall, or lopsided; if you deflate it too much, they will spread flat. Baked too long or at too high a temperature, the saturated color will fade; baked too low, the bottoms may be sticky. 

Since those days in the 15th arrondissement, I’ve baked macarons time and time again, sometimes creating masterpieces, sometimes not. I have never minded the flaws too much because the process is gratifying, the cookies can’t help but look seductive with their vivid hues, and they’re delicious every time. But I have always wanted to nail down a method that would make success certain, and now I’ve come up with a recipe that does just that. If you’re a first-timer to macarons, a little practice may still be needed, since a few steps require finesse, and you’ll have to understand the idiosyncrasies of your oven. But the payoff will be sweet.

Here’s a synopsis of the process: Sift almond flour together with confectioners’ sugar, which will ensure a smooth top, and then whip granulated sugar and egg whites into a satiny meringue (there are a couple of possible approaches here—more in a moment). Next, add the meringue to the almond flour mixture and stir repeatedly, in a process called “macaronage,” to partially deflate the batter. Pipe the batter into rounds and leave the shells to dry so that a “skin” can form on their tops. When the shells bake, this skin forces steam to escape at the base, forming a well-defined, airy foot. Bake and cool the shells, fill them as your heart desires, and then refrigerate the filled confections for 24 hours to “mature.” This resting step, a counterintuitive move for such a delicate sweet, is of great importance: As the macarons sit, moisture from the filling is absorbed by the shells, so the interior softens while the exterior remains lightly crisp.

Before getting to work on my recipe, I consulted macaron maven Gesine Bullock-Prado. The cookbook author, who is also an instructor at her baking school Sugar Glider Kitchen, reminded me during a video call that classic recipes call for “tant-pour-tant” amounts of almond flour and both sugars—in other words, all three ingredients in equal measure. Using that ratio, I shifted my attention to the particulars of the technique.

A stiff, stable meringue that holds onto its air is critical to success. The stronger the meringue, the more wiggle room you have during macaronage so that you can blend the batter until it is thinned to a texture that will bake up properly. With a weaker meringue, you might accidentally knock out too much air. 

That’s what happened when I made a French meringue, one of the two styles commonly used for macarons. All you do is whip egg whites with sugar, which is easy but results in an unstable meringue that doesn’t hold much air and thus produces thin, flat shells. But an Italian meringue, the kind that many bakers, including Bullock-Prado, favor is much more stable: You cook sugar and water to 245 degrees (at this “firm-ball” stage, enough of the water has evaporated that the mixture is 87 percent sugar and 13 percent water) and then pour the bubbling syrup into softly beaten whites that are whirling in a stand mixer. Heating the whites helps set their proteins into a more rigid, buoyant architecture that is remarkably sturdy. After a few tests, I incorporated a touch of cream of tartar for added stability. I also learned to whip the whites just to the right degree, when they drooped on the whisk in the shape of a curved bird’s beak. This “bec d’oiseau” is the cue that it’s time to fold in the dry ingredients and perform macaronage.

When piping the batter (I like a two-bite diameter of 11/2 inches), I produced the neatest circles by holding the pastry bag vertically so that the batter flowed straight down, employing a swift flick of the wrist at the end to cut off the batter and let it settle on top. Then, to burst any big air bubbles, I rapped the baking sheet on the counter a few times. For the resting step, 20 minutes was sufficient to develop a skin firm enough to force steam out of the base during baking, creating a ruffled foot. 

Thanks to sifting the dry ingredients, using an Italian meringue, and practicing macaronage, my shells were rising uniformly and baking up smooth. But their interiors harbored large air pockets. Happily, the hollowness disappeared when I left a portion of the whites unwhipped and added them raw to the meringue along with the almond flour mixture (à la the venerable Hermé and many other pastry chefs). Since this resulted in less total air in the batter, the shells were less likely to form a hollow.

The quality of my macarons also improved as I came to grips with the unique characteristics of the test kitchen ovens. Per Bullock-Prado, “sometimes you have no idea what’s happened [with your macarons] and the oven is usually the culprit.” Unlike many baked goods, macaron shells should not be browned, as this dulls their color. I had been baking mine at 325 degrees, per many recipes. At this temperature, the colors stayed true, but the tops finished before the bottoms, which remained sticky and hard to peel from the parchment. Only by moving the shells to a lower rack to hasten the cooking of their bottoms did I finally crack the code to beautifully baked shells in the test kitchen ovens. You’ll have to get to know your oven too. If it heats unevenly, you may need to rotate the pan during baking or raise or lower the rack.

There’s one more sensitivity to be aware of: If even the slightest puff of air from an oven fan breezes beneath the parchment paper, it may cause the shells to rise askew. Spraying the baking sheet with vegetable oil spray to adhere the paper to the sheet is a good preventative measure.

After weeks of honing my skills, I was now producing gorgeous macarons in a rainbow of colors and flavors. To celebrate, I swirled sweet-tart raspberry buttercream onto a blush-pink shell and sandwiched another shell on top. This spectacularly chic cookie would more than pass muster at Le Cordon Bleu.