The French Macaron Massacre

I instruct for the Viking Cooking School in Atlanta and when I am assigned a class that I have not taught before, especially if it's a sweets and dessert class, I like to practice so I can look like I've been doing the class all my life.

Such is the case for the sold out class that I will be teaching tomorrow morning, Macarons and Whoopie Pies. 

I read the recipes and felt confident with the whoopie pies but decided that even though the macarons seemed super simple, I would make them anyway. And all I can say is thank goodness I did, because I totally massacred those babies!  These certainly would not have made a very good impression on my class!  Here's what happened while they were resting prior to baking.

Despite piping the meringue in the guides that I marked on my Silpat, they ran and ran and ran! And yes, I tinted the meringue yellow, as if you couldn't have figured it out.

I baked them anyway, but there is no way to separate baked meringues without breaking them. I was able to get a few off and I pitched the others.  I didn't bother to fill them but ate them naked and they tasted pretty good.

Today I got out all of the ingredients again and set about making them a second time, paying really close attention to consistency and time.  This time they turned out much, much better.  Here's today's batch resting.

Don't they look pretty?

Here they are after they baked.

Notice the foot around the macaron? Yep, it's supposed to be there.

I did not make the buttercream filling for them but instead filled them with Nutella.

The resident taste tester popped one in his mouth and declared them perfect.

I'll go into the class tomorrow and share my story of the massacred French macarons. Hopefully what I learned in my practice runs will help the class make a perfect French macaron the first time.