Les Macarons

When you are me and you spend a lot of time critiquing everyone else's macarons, it is only fair that you actually attempt making them. I got together with a friend for a baking day and we used a recipe out of Bon Appetit . We didn't change much except omitting the rose flavor.

Here is the pastry batter, ready to be squeezed (with a pastry bag) on to baking sheets
A batch of baked cookies. The thing I loved about them is how smooth their surface was (we sifted the almond meal from Central Market to have the smoothest almond flour). They were flatter than we wanted,and after reading many other macaron recipes, I believe we baked them too hot. We'll fix that next time.
The berry filling simmering away
Our delicious macarons with berry jam and berry buttercream.
Perfect accompaniment to my morning cappuccino.
Couple of comments on the recipe:

Quantities were off. We got only 20 macarons instead of 36. We had a TON of extra filling. Since macarons are delicately loaded, there is no way we could have used all that.

Temperature didn't feel right. Other recipes suggest 275 (compared to this recipe's 375).

It is well worth thickening the butter cream in a bain marie. It keeps the cream from being too squishy and oozing out when you eat the macaron.

And one comment on the process itself: The smoothness of your cookie will depend on how smooth your almond flour is. So even if you have to waste half your almond meal (since I couldn't find a place that sells almond flour), sift, sift and sift.

Here is a picture that shows the smooth surface and thin crust that cracked just right when poked or bitten into.
Mmm... I ate 8 of them in 2 days.