Had some extra egg whites after making these
cherry blossom butter cookies from JustOneCookbook, as well as some left over cream cheese from another recipe so decided to try making macarons again. It's been a while since I've felt like I made a completely successful batch so I've avoided making them for months. This time around, I decided to make it in smaller batches so I used the French meringue method, whipping it by hand (just granulated sugar slowly added to the egg whites) rather than deal with making a hot sugar syrup since the amount was so small. Also, big learning point of the day was that it helps to have an oven thermometer. Turns out one of the main reasons for my past failures was because my oven temperature was much lower than what I thought it was, which lead to undercooked shells that were hollow and stuck both to the silicone baking sheets as well as parchment paper. I ended up making 3 batches of these this week just to make sure, each time setting my oven temp higher than was indicated in the original recipe to make sure it wasn't a fluke, and sure enough it worked! The temperature I'm listing here is what the recipe should be at - however, depending on your own oven, you may need to adjust it higher or lower if your oven's temperature is inaccurate. For some recipes, having an off temperature don't matter as much, but in the case of macaron shells, it definitely makes a difference!
