Macaron, Not Macaroni!

Recently I have had an obsession with macarons, which is very odd since I don't believe I've actually ever had one. I am not French pro, but according to research I have done, there are macarons and macaroons. Macaroons could be the same thing with the English translation, or they can be a hard coconut or coarse almond paste cookie. Macaron is the sandwich cookie made with egg whites. Here is a picture of each:





I have had an odd obsession with the colorful ones. I just think they're so pretty. Every picture of them I see only makes me want it more! It started a while back when I saw something on TV about Ludaree in Paris. From what I hear, these are the Chanel of macarons. In fact, they even teamed up with Christian Louboutin for designer cookies. They have multiple flavors, which are represented by the different colors. They're a work of art. Being a home baker, I have decided to give these a whirl. I found this website which gave great detailed instructions on how to go about it: http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/10/how-to-make-macarons-recipe.html . (This recipe took a long time.)

I had some mishaps in my baking. First, I decided Saturday morning that I wanted to make these, and being impatient, I did not let my egg whites sit overnight. I would definitely NOT do the again. Second, I was unable to find ground almonds, so I had to improvise. I bought diced almonds, measured the grams and placed them in a Ziploc bag. I then took all my aggression out and hammered them until they were as close to ground as I could get them. I would recommend this ONLY if you can't find the ground almonds. There were still small chunks I didn't get, and it gave my cookies a speckled look. Also, I think I made the mistake of mixing the batter too much. After pouring in the sugar/almond dry mixture, I think I folded the batter a few times too many. This was probably because I wanted pretty colors, so then divided the batter into 4 bowls and then mixed some gel food coloring in. Next time I will have to remember to take that into account while mixing the entire batch. And lastly, when I was removing the cookies from the parchment paper a lot of them stuck. The bottoms of most of them were not very hard. It made removing them very difficult and caused me to throw out a bunch of cookies.

All in all, my cookies tasted great, but I feel they could have looked better. Have a look for yourself.
Finished product:




Right after they came out of the oven:


Before the oven: