My oldest daughter had her junior prom last night and I was in charge of dinner for her and her group of friends. Her lunch table are my macaron flavor “taste testers” and the girls all wanted my macarons for dessert. Each girl picked their favorite flavor and I got to work. I made over 250 so I could send some home with them the next morning. (All the girls stayed at my house last night too.) They are still not perfect, but Crystals recipe gave me so much more confidence going into this weekend and I’m so thankful. Flavors were: Pina Colada buttercream with Mango Curd Birthday Cake Buttercream Key Lime Pie Lemon buttercream with raspberry curd Banana Milkshake White Chocolate Ganache Cotton Candy buttercream Peanut Butter buttercream with brownie batter center Wild blueberry white chocolate ganache with lemon curd center

tryed baking with only albumin powder but thats how its gone 😅 but theyre full…

In the recipe it says to whip the meringue until the bowl is cool to the touch and the meringue is a shiny stiff peak. I often though get the shiny stiff peak before my bowl is cool. Like it will literally be very warm. I worry if i wait till the cool to the touch part, my meringue will be very over mixed. What does everyone else do? Go for the shiny stiff peak? I usually go till I see the ridges because shiny happens very early for me. Pic of my meringue ready when my bowl is still warm.

I’m still tweaking things chasing that perfect macaron. Throughout this process I have kind of kept an ongoing discussion with Chat GPT about what worked and what didn’t. “He” has given me suggestions left and right and many have been very beneficial. We are dialing things down currently sooooo close to perfect and tonight after explaining my constant aggravation with slightly sticky bottoms I made a couple tweaks he suggested and made my best macs to date. According to Chat GPT my oven runs hot on top and traps moisture. I was consistently getting slightly sticky bottoms when everything else was cooked correctly. I made a couple minor adjustments that “he” told me to make and no sticky at all! Just wanted to share that for me discussing this with “him” has been so helpful.