Pucker up! These little heart macarons have a delightful lemonade flavor. This cookie is crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside with a lemon buttercream zing.
One way to achieve a perfectly smooth cookie is to keep the outside shell from cracking during baking. To do this, let the macarons dry to the touch before baking. After placing the macarons on the cooking mat or cookie sheet, let them sit for at least 20 minutes. Then test them by touching one. If the cookie batter sticks to your finger, they need to dry for a longer time. On a humid day, it might take an hour for the macarons to form a dry shell on top.
To remove air bubbles from the cookies before you bake them, tap the cookie sheet on a countertop. As you tap, you will see air bubbles rise to the top of the cookies and pop. Tapping also helps smooth the batter so that the cookies are not rough and lumpy.
To color the macaron shells, always use gel food coloring instead of liquid coloring. A liquid coloring can put too much extra water into the batter. To achieve a blush color like these macarons, use one to two drops of pink gel coloring. For thicker paste-like gels, use the tip of a sharp knife or the tip of a toothpick to pick up some gel color. Always start with a small amount of food coloring and build on it to achieve the perfect color.
Also, there is always some confusion about whether this cookie is a macaron or macaroon. It is a mac-a-ron with the last part of the word ending in -ron and pronounced like the name Ron. Macarons are meringue-based cookies, and macaroons (its cousin) are coconut-based cookies that do not have colorful shells.
Pink Lemonade Macarons
Equipment
- silicon macaron mat with 1 1/2-inch heart indentations
- pastry bag with a large round piping tip (or a gallon zipper bag with a small hole cut in the bottom corner)
- pastry bag with medium round or star piping tip (or quart zipper bag with small hole cut in bottom corner)
Ingredients
Cookies
- 100 grams almond flour
- 100 grams powdered sugar
- 70 grams egg whites, room temperature
- ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
- 50 grams granulated sugar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 2 drops food grade lemon essential oil (optional) (Doterra brand lemon essential oil used)
- ½ teaspoon lemon juice
- 1-2 drops pink food coloring gel
Lemon Buttercream
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon cream or whole milk
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
Cookies
- In a medium bowl, sift together almond flour and powdered sugar, discarding any almond pieces that do not pass through the sifter. Repeat. Set sifted ingredients aside.
- In a large clean mixing bowl with the mixer’s whisk attachment, beat egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Beat in the cream of tartar. Add the granulated sugar 1 tablespoon at a time while continuing to beat. Then increase the speed to medium-high and beat until stiff peaks form. To check for stiff peaks, detach the whisk and turn it upside down. The peak is stiff if it stands straight up without collapsing.
- Add lemon essential oil, lemon juice, and pink gel food coloring. Beat on medium speed for one more minute until pink.
- Add 1/2 of the sifted almond flour/sugar mixture to the whipped egg whites and mix until mostly incorporated. Then add the remaining almond flour mixture. Gently fold the mixture, running the spatula clockwise up around the sides. Do not overmix. Test whether the batter is ready by picking up a dollop of batter on the spatula and dropping it back into the bowl. The dropped batter should take 30 seconds to flatten back into the bowl batter. If not, fold again, test, and repeat. Once your test dollop smooths out in 30 seconds, STOP folding. If overfolded, the mixture will be runny and will make hard, flat cookies.
- Transfer the batter into a pastry bag with a large round tip or into a gallon zipper bag with the corner cut off. Pipe 1.5-inch hearts onto the macaron mat in the indentations provided. Fill the entire heart. If needed, use a toothpick to spread the batter to completely fill the hearts.
- Tap the baking sheets firmly on the counter a few times to remove any air bubbles. Let the macarons dry out for 30-45 minutes to form a skin on top. Test by touching. If no batter sticks to your finger, they are ready. If not, let them sit a little longer and test again.
- Preheat the oven to 300°F. Bake the macarons for 12-15 minutes on the middle rack, rotating the cooking sheet after half the cooking time. Keep an eye on them and do not let them brown, or they will lose their pink color and overcook. They are done if they feel hard, and you can detach one easily from the mat.
- Cool completely. Then carefully remove cookies from the mat by pulling the mat away from the cookie.
Buttercream
- In a clean mixing bowl with the whisk attachment, beat the butter until fluffy.
- Add powdered sugar, cream, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Pipe frosting onto half of the macaron cookies, and then add the other cookie halves to make a sandwich cookie. Macarons can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 5 months.