French Chocolate Macarons

For the past few months, this is the recipe that I'm trying to perfect - French macarons.

The first time I tried a French macaron was from Bizu Patisserie from the Philippines. Then we went to Paris and tried some macarons from Ladurée and Fauchon... oooh they were melt-in-your-mouth heaven!

Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of the ones from  Ladurée.

Anyway, after that yummy vacay, I wanted to try and make some. I hesitated at first because had this feeling that this is not an easy recipe. Luckily, I found a very easy to follow recipe for chocolate macarons from David Lebovitz.

Other than the fillings in the recipe, I followed the recipe to the T. I just had a hard time knowing when to stop folding the macaron batter... when do I stop folding?!

When I felt that enough folding has been done (even though from recent experiences, the folding was not enough on my first try), I piped them on my baking pans. Based on my research, some recommends using parchment paper instead of silicone mats, and some otherwise. So I decided to pipe them in both parchment paper and silicone mat.

As you can see from the photos below, they have pointed tops. Even when I rapped then to death, they won't go away. So it only means I didn't fold the batter enough. And the ones piped on the parchment paper were too crowded. C'est la vie! 

Here they are, all baked and ready to be eaten. Seriously, I ate a few pieces already even before I made and put the filling! :D You'll notice from the photos that they're cracked. C'est la vie!

Here's a comparison of the bottom of the macarons - parchment paper vs. silicone mat. The only difference I noticed was the shiny bottom when baked on silicone mat.

Now that the macarons are done, let's talk about filling. You can use any filling you like - buttercream, ganache, or even Nutella!

I didn't make the chocolate filling from David's recipe because I didn't have (and can't find!) corn syrup. So I decided to make chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream, something that I've got the hang of making. I used the recipe from My Butter Fingers, which she adapted from Smitten Kitchen (proud to say I'm a big fan of Smitten Kitchen) and Use Real Butter.

In my opinion, Swiss meringue buttercream needs a little getting used to. Actually, anything meringue or anything that involves beating egg whites still scares me. Overbeating/underbeating destroys the food you're making, which is totally annoying.

Anyway, here are the finished product complete with fillings.

I made these the 2nd, 3rd, (nth!) time and it never fails to disappoint me. Here are other photos of the nth (don't know when I made them!) time I made macarons. See the less pointed, shiny tops? And no cracks! perfect!

Do try this out. It's worth the stress hihi! Here are the links to the recipes I used:
David Lebovitz's Chocolate Macarons
My Butter Fingers' Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

By the way, I finally got a bottle of light corn syrup and made the chocolate filling from David's recipe. Fudgy yummy!

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