Current go to Macarons

I spent years using the french macaron method and accepted a certain element of crackage. It was just the expectation that the basic meringue is the simpler option, but then I bit the bullet and tried Italian meringue and never looked back. Yes it requires more washing up. But the "hit" rate as such is much higher. The cracks are not all blameable on hot spots. Sometimes it's just the mix. This recipe is from Pierre Herme as per the Telegraph. I do not use liquefied egg whites because it's never made a difference to me, and I'm definitely not buying mineral water, the remaining adjustments are just shortcuts to avoid over complication.

The ones made here I decided to decorate (first time) by mixing up a little food colouring with vodka and just paint it on.

MAKES
around 72 macarons (or about 144 shells)

Ingredients
Part A:
300g ground almonds
300g icing sugar
110g egg whites
Food colouring (gel or paste)

Part B:
300g caster sugar
75g cold water
110g egg whites


METHOD

1. Part A: Sift icing sugar and ground almonds into a bowl.
   Note: Food processor it if the pieces are particularly large/replace any unsievable parts.
2. Add food colouring to the egg whites and put in the bowl as well but do not mix.
3. Part B: Boil water and sugar to 118C. As the temperature is rising, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks. When the sugar reaches 118C, remove from hob and pour carefully over the still whisking egg whites.
4. Continue to whisk until the meringue cools to 50C (or when the bowl is relatively cool to touch.)
5. Fold Part A into Part B or vice versa. Macronage or make it like lava.
   Note: All the rules of macarons regarding not overmixing, undermixing etc apply but have to be learnt via brutal trial and error but remember if this is your first time, read a few webpages, watch a few videos and fight the natural urge to keep air in when you're folding, your goal here is to squish it out.
6. Spoon into a piping bag and with a plain round nozzle, pipe rounds of about 3.5cm onto baking trays lined with silicon or baking parchment.
   Note: Here I usually hold the piping bag perpendicular and just squeeze for two beats. For neat rounds, slow yourself down as the temptation is to get faster and faster. Space them about 2cm apart because the wretched things sometimes merge.
7. Rap the baking trays on the work surface a couple of times.
   Note: If you're in the mood I use a skewer to gently pop any big bubbles I can see. These would cause dark spots if you leave them alone.
   If you're using an add in like coloured sugar, sprinkle now.
8. Leave for 30 minutes to form a skin (more if it's humid/rainy out.)
9. Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas mark 4 and put trays in the oven.
   Note: put two trays at once at your own risk, the bottom tray usually cooks at a different rate. Given this mix made me seven trays of 15 + a tray, you don't want to hang around that long, so make sure the two levels are not so close to allow for the air to circulate.
10. As soon as the macarons form feet (cheer), open the door to let some heat out. If you see some cracking, open the door.
    Note: Roux brothers recipe asks you to leave the door permanently jammed open with a spoon, or magically have two ovens with different temperatures running. If you consider the process as really one of drying out, the let out of any steam makes sense. Herme says to do it twice in the 12 minutes by "quickly opening and shutting the door twice during cooking time". I prefer to do one when the feet are showing, and odds are I'll do a few near the end when I'm checking if they're cooked yet.
11. Bake in total for 12 minutes (depending on oven and size of macarons, sometimes it goes up to 18minutes for mine as I make mine bigger, just give a little nudge to the top and if it wobbles it's not done. You can also see by flipping the parchment over and if the base its cooked you can see the whole macaron as opposed to a ring on the parchment.
    Note: don't overdry the macarons otherwise they are a) unpleasant b) require a good few days maturing with a very wet filling to revive.
    Also be confident of one coming off first as you can always return it to the oven at this point.
12. Leave on the lining paper for a bit and they should either come straight off or can be scraped with a spatula.
13. Fill with filling and try to avoid eating for at least a day

The below is the remainder of the recipe which I used only once but list for completeness. From that experience I would say that you can't taste the lychee which is a shame, so if you were making it, consider leaving in chunks of lychee or reducing the white chocolate which can overpower.

The ones above were filled with leftover vanilla buttercream, leftover marmite truffle (thank you Paul Young) and my emergency go-to, PBJ using cherry jam.

For the raspberry jelly

420g raspberries
35g caster sugar
4g gelatine leaves

For the lychee and rose ganache

410g white chocolate (Milky Bar or cheapo for me worked fine. Vahlrona for Mr Herme)
400g lychees (canned fine)
60g liquid crème fraiche or whipping cream
3g rose extract

To finish

100g granulated sugar
A few drops red food colouring

Raspberry jelly:

1. Soak gelatine leaves in cold water
2. Blend raspberries and sugar together and strain for pips.
3. Heat a quarter of the puree to 45C.
4. Squeeze the gelatine leaves and add to hot puree before adding the remaining raspberry puree.
5. Set the jelly in a clingfilm lined dish (4mm depth of jelly is what you are after.)
6. Cut into 1.5cm squares

Coloured sugar:

1. Preheat oven to 60C.
2. Mix sugar with food colouring and rub together (gloves suggested, between sheets of clingfilm is an alternative.)
3. Spread on a baking tray and allow to dry.

Lychee and rose ganache:

1. Drain lychees, blitz and strain to make 240g puree.
2. Boil lychee and cream together and then pour over diced white chocolate to melt.
3. Add rose essence and stir.
4. Cover surface of ganache with cling film and allow to cool before filling macaron.