I am the original submitter of this recipe, so here are some tips to follow, since All Recipes changes the recipe a bit when they approve it. 1.) You have to measure the ingredients by weight. They've put the weights in the footnotes. If you measure out, say, three egg whites instead of 50g of egg whites, you might be off enough to mess up the cookie, and it won't puff up correctly (or at all). 2.) YES YOU DO HAVE TO SIFT THE INGREDIENTS! I'm so lazy. I've tried to do it without sifting. It never works out, trust me. Sift that powdered sugar and almond powder together. You won't regret it. 2.) The "silicone baking mat" in step one was originally a Silpat. I have tried making these on every surface known to man, including my cookie favorite, parchment paper. You need the Silpat or you won't be able to get the cookies off the sheet. 3.) People debate on whether it's necessary to let them set for an hour before baking. We tried setting them from 1 to 240 minutes. One hour is perfect. 4.) It is possible to mix it too much, and the cookie won't puff up when baked. Use as few strokes as possible when folding the almond into the egg whites. 5.) I highly recommend finding already-ground almonds, rather than grinding them yourself. It was our experience that grinding our own almonds resulted in an inferior cookie. They have to be ground to a very fine powder, and it's nearly impossible to do with regular kitchen equipment. Good luck!

I used gel food coloring to color the macarons and only needed a little bit. I added that at the very end of the folding (macaronage) process. I wanted two different colors, so I separated some of the batter in another bowl and carefully stirred in the colors. I do not own a scale so I had to follow the volume measurements rather than the weight measurements. It is not advisable to do so with macarons but I didn't have a choice. I made this recipe twice and the first time my macarons were lumpy/grainy. The second time I grounded up my almond meal (Bob's Mill) some more in my food processor to get a finer texture and that helped a lot. I also made sure that I folded in the almond flour and powdered sugar mixture very well into the whites mixture but was careful not to overmix. I made a strawberry buttercream to fill the pink ones and a lemon/lime buttercream for the green ones. I also used apricot preserves the first time I made them to fill the yellow ones but we didn't care for that. My next ones will have chocolate ganache and hopefully I will have my kitchen scale to ensure better measurements. Great recipe!

Thank you for this recipe! Have never tried a macaron but have recently been obsessed with trying them. Of course, there's nowhere to buy them within a hundred miles and I hate risking buying food online. So I tried this out. For my first try, I think I did really good, considering how hard people always say it is to get them right. Tasted good, had little feet, just didn't puff up all the way (too much liquid in mine, I think-- because i never fully follow directions). The only problem was a technical one. I didn't have a non-stick base (had JUST run out of parchment paper) so 90% of them stuck and lost their bottoms too much to ignore. It wasn't a bad thing though, because my spouse ate them all anyway. He actually didn't like the ones I filled, just the plain ones. ^-^' Will definitely do this again.

These came out great! This was my first attempt at macarons and I was afraid because I always hear how hard they are to make. I can't believe I was able to do it on my first try! I weighed the ingredients instead of measuring as the author of this recipe suggested: 100 grams egg whites 50 grams white sugar 200 grams confectioners' sugar 110 grams ground almonds. I also did not have a silicone baking sheet so I lightly greased parchment paper and it worked great. I left them in the oven on 170 degrees for a long time (I think about an hour )because they were too moist in the middle still after the baking time. They turned out great!

This is my third macaron recipe, and FINALLY, I got lift and feet and no cracks, but ONLY after I bought a scale and weighed everything. Volume measurements didn't work for me at all.

I have not yet tried this recipe, but intend to do so within the next week. I would like to know how the vibrant colors are achieved in the pictured macarons. What type of food coloring was used and at what point in the mixing process was it added? Thanks!

The ingredients overall worked, but baking them was a complete flop the first time around. They came out perfectly the second time. What I did differently the second time. Piping: I used a real pastry bag. I tried to shortcut it the first time and it was a sloppy mess. I also rubber-banded of the end of the bag so the batter wouldn't leak out and cut it right before piping. I made a template on a piece of parchment paper with circles as a guide for piping so they are more uniform in size. Template was taped to the table and I placed other sheets of parchment on top of template to pipe. On round one, I noticed the macarons I piped toward the end of the sheet were more loose, so on round two I took a break and iced my hand so that the heat from my hand wasn't loosening up the batter. Baking: preheat oven to 375. Before putting sheet in, reduce heat to 325. Bake 5 min. Rotate tray. bake 5 min. Take sheet out and reheat oven to 375 for next sheet. I found I could not bake more than one sheet at a time. Baking sheets: They did not get "feet" on any sheet other than an old, thin baking sheet. My thermal sheets and baking stones did not work. After filling: let macarons sit for 24 before serving. Something happens to them to soften the cookie ever so slightly that makes them just like the European macarons my friend was craving. Serve within 48 hours or freeze.

I'm sure this is completely my fault which is why I am not giving it a low rating. Anyhow, The macarons crack within 4 - 5 minutes of baking! I've tried many many variations of 'resting.' I achieve pretty dry - hard shells, but they crack in the oven anyway. The feets are all perfect though... Did I just simply over mix? How can you tell you've overmixed *before* baking? For the 'skin', I've done the 30 mins, the hour, the hour 1/2... I even tried popping them right into the oven after piping at 200F for 15 minutes, achieving a really nice hard shell (Advice taken from "Les Petits. Macarons"). I've tried leaving it in the oven on "warm" for 10 minutes and also got a nice shell (advice taken from a blogger I found on google. But every time I start to actually bake it, every thing goes wrong. Please help...!

I have made macarons dozens and dozens of times- this one had the best results. They dried within 20 minutes, and I baked them for 20 minutes. I absolutely loved them- made chocolate macarons using 4.5 tbsp of dark cocoa, and filled them with a dark chocolate raspberry ganache. EXCELLENT! go to http://hotchocolatehits.blogspot.com/ to see my adjustments and photos. I may even make a video soon!

I tried this recipe last week and without using a scale and although they didn't taste bad, they looked horrible! However, this week I was extremely meticulous about following every single direction and even some other tips from other people and they came out great! You do need to give in and buy a scale! In the long run you will have pretty macarons and you will save money from going to a baker just so you can enjoy some! The baking of a macaron is going to be different from everyone. I did half the batch on a silipat and half on parchment paper. The parchment paper batch came off easier and looked much nicer. The silipat batch had a problem sticking and a few cracked (those were probably done from me). Anyway, do what works best for you!