Oh French Macarons, you delicious but tricky little treats.  These confectionary beauties can be made at home. But it does require the right recipe and the correct technique.  But with a little practice, your macarons will look and taste as if they came straight from the french bakery.

Here are a few tips that help make the macaron making process easier:

How to Make Macarons

1. Preferably use a convection oven or an oven with a convection setting.
2. Macarons should be 1.5 inches to bake into a crispy outside, moist inside cookie.  Google “printable macaron template” to get a free printable guide to slip under your silicone baking mat as an outline for the perfect 1.5″ circular rounds needed for evenly piping out the macaron batter. If you don’t have a baking mat, use parchment paper.
3. Use a pastry bag fitted with a round tip and pipe 1½ inch rounds onto the silicone baking mat following the template.
4. Stand your pastry bag up in a tall glass to balance it while filling it with the batter
5. Once you have piped your cookies, gently poke any bubbles or holes with a toothpick before baking
6. After piping the macaron cookie rounds, let the tray sit out for twenty minutes until the tops look drier than the cookie.
7. Only use gel food coloring so as not to alter the texture of the batter, and when possible, add the coloring in at the egg white beating stage.
8. Measure ingredients precisely using a digital scale. There is no estimating in French Macarons.
9. Don’t make macarons on a rainy or very humid day.
10. Folding the ingredients into the right consistency takes practice. Use a flexible spatula to scrape the side of the bowl and pull the mix towards the center 50 times. Do not overfold the mix into a runny texture, like a pancake mix. It needs to be thicker.
11. After baking, let Macarons stand one day for optimal taste. Store in an airtight container for up to five days or freeze them.
12. Fresh almond meal makes for the shiny and smooth appearance. The almond meal should fit through a mesh sieve. If not, grind it in the food processor until it does.
13. Use an oven thermometer to precisely gauge temperature

Need a foolproof French Macaron recipe? Try our go-to Quite A Kitchen French Macaron Batter Recipe.