Yet Another Post About Very Fashionable Macarons

Fashion blogs,interior design blogs, cooking blogs - macarons are everywhere! Pink, green, black.With rose filling, chocolate, marzipan. They look like precious jewels in cute Ladurée boxes.
And here I am, the last person on Earth that never ate them! Good excuse for a sweet treat..

It is not easy to make nice macarons. Mine had cracked shells and the chocolate filling was a bit runny. But not too bad for the first time, I think.

Macarons:

110 g ground almonds
200 g powdered sugar
seeds from 1/2 vanilla bean
50 g sugar
about 3 egg whites, aged a day at room temperature

Chocolate ganache filling:

1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
2 Tbs butter
1 cup semisweet or dark chocolate
pinch salt

Preheat your oven to 150C and line two or more baking trays with parchment paper. Combine the powdered sugar and ground almonds and cocoa powder  until the mixture is very fine and not lumpy. Beat the egg whites at medium-high speed in the bowl of a standing mixer until they hold soft peaks. Continue whipping as you add in the white sugar. Whisk the mixture for about 2 minutes, or until it is very stiff and glossy.
Gently fold in the almond-chocolate-sugar mixture using a spatula. Mix–gently–until the egg whites are completely incorporated. Transfer the mixture into a pastry bag with a round tip. Pipe small circles of batter onto the baking sheets, spacing the cookies about 2 cm apart. Firmly tap the baking sheet on the counter to flatten the macarons.
Bake for about 15-18 minutes (until they’re puffed and the tops look set) before removing the baking sheet from the oven and cooling completely. Repeat with the second batch. Once cooled, carefully remove the cookies from the baking sheet and place onto a plate.
Prepare the ganache filling: Combine the cream and sugar in a small pot over medium heat. Once the cream just begins to boil, remove it from the heat and add in the chocolate and salt. Let the mixture sit for about a minute before stirring. Add in the butter. Stir to fully combine and cool completely before using.Once the filling and cookies have cooled, assemble your macarons: spread the filling on the flat edge of one cookie, top with a second and set aside.

Sounds easy but it is not...My kitchen was a mess and I was covered with chocolate, not to mention all the swearing! Well, but at the end the macarons were very tasty (a bit to sweet, next time I won't add sugar to the filling!) and didn't last very long.