French Vanilla Macarons
More Macarons! French Vanilla Macarons this time!
If you follow my recipes for a while, you notice I enjoy making macarons and cupcakes the most probably. And vegan desserts, but anyway, this isn’t vegan because it takes eggs, and I have yet to work on a vegan macaron recipe, although a couple of people have messaged me about it. I will try soon! And hope to publish the results here!
Anyway, these French Vanilla Macarons are very simple. I decided to make them blue and white, maybe I was inspired after searching for some Easter recipes inspiration.
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I made an Easter macaron recipe last year, my Robin’s Eggs Macarons. They were served at my son’s birthday party hint: it was a Peter Rabbit themed party. Other Easter macarons we had at the party were: Matcha Macarons, and Lemon Macarons.
Anyway, here we are, almost a year later, Easter right around the corner, and I won’t be ashamed to say I’m already in the mood. I love the holiday, and specially now that is around my son’s birthday, and the beginning of spring, making it one of the most fun times of the year.
These are called French Vanilla Macarons because they are filled with a French Vanilla Buttercream, which is a yolk-base buttercream.
We start by making an egg/sugar syrup and bringing its temperature up over a double boiler, while whisking non-stop. Once the yolk syrup reaches 155F, we remove it and whip it at a high speed in the mixer.
That’s because at 155F, the yolks will be at a safe temperature to be consumed.
Anyway, once we whip the yolk/sugar mixture and achieve stiff peaks, we can start to add the butter until a thick, smooth cream forms.
These French Vanilla Macarons are perfect for freezing, since their filling is a simple buttercream. You don’t want to freeze macarons that take a wet filling such as jam. That’s because the jam will make the macaron shells too wet, and they simply won’t freeze too well.
Now these French Vanilla macarons are just perfect for that. Which is why I love macarons for birthday parties and events, because they can be made ahead and frozen, since they freeze beautifully.
I hope you liked today’s recipe. If you are looking to master macarons, I have a tone of macaron recipes on my website. Just click here to check out some more macaron recipes.
If you are new to making macarons, check out my Matcha Macarons post, where I go over some main tips and techniques. On my Raspberry Macarons post, I talk about Almond Flour, brands, sifting methods, etc. On my Espresso Macarons post, I answer common questions about making macarons. On my Lemon Macarons post, I talk about macaron shelf life and storage. Check them out! And also, there are tones of other resources online that can help you.
I have started writing a macaron e-book. I still don’t have a date to release it yet, but at least I’ve started it. I’ve written a few pages so far. There are many questions I want to answer, and I realize how hard making macarons can be, so I want to be able to help everyone that wants to learn, by providing valuable tips I’ve learned through the years of making macarons, failing at it, and also succeeding.
French Vanilla Macarons
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
- 100 grams egg whites
- 100 grams white granulated sugar
- 105 grams almond flour
- 105 grams powdered sugar
- Food coloring optional
French Vanilla Buttercream
- 3 yolks
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar 1.7 oz, 50 grams
- 1/2 tablespoon bourbon rum, or another liquid
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 9 tablespoons unsalted butter softened (4.5 oz, 127 grams)
Instructions
Macaron Shells
- Before you start, get all of your ingredients ready. Prepare a large piping bag, fitted with a large round tip.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicon mat.
- Under my parchment, I put a layout with circles that measure about 1 1/2 inches each. That’s how big I like to pipe my macarons.
- Measure out all of your ingredients.
- Sift powdered sugar and almond flour together. Set aside.
- Now you can finally start.
- Place egg whites and granulated sugar in a heat proof bowl or in a double boiler. Over a pan of simmering water, whisk the whites and sugar until frothy and sugar completely melted. It will take a couple minutes. You can test by touching the mixture between your fingers, and if you feel any sugar granules just keep whisking mixture over the water bath.
- Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the simmering water.
- Transfer mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer. (I use my kitchenAid bowl when doing this, because it makes it easier)
- With the whisk attachment, whisk mixture on high speed for a few minutes until stiff peaks are formed.
- Best way to check this is to keep your eye on the whites. Once they get glossy and you start seeing streaks formed by the whisk, it might be time to stop.
- You don’t want to overbeat the mixture at this point, because you don’t want to add too much air to it. Just whisk until stiff peaks have formed.
- Pour powdered sugar and almond flour into stiff whites.
- Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula. Add the food coloring at this point if you would like to use any.
- It’s time to stop folding when the batter is glossy and has a thick and flowing consistency. There are several ways to test this.
- First, I pick up some batter with my spatula and try to draw a figure 8 with the batter that is dripping off the spatula. If you can form several 8 figures without the batter breaking up, that’s one indication that it might be ready.
- Then, I grab a teaspoon of batter and spoon onto my parchment paper or silicone mat.
- If the batter stays stiff and doesn’t spread out a bit, I start folding a little bit more, about 3 folds.
- Test again.
- Once the batter spreads out a bit and starts to look glossy on the parchment paper, I transfer my mixture to the piping bag.
- You don’t want your batter to be too runny either. So be careful not to overmix. It’s always best to undermix and test several times until the proper consistency has been achieved.
- Once you’ve piped as many 1 1/2” circles as you could, bang the trays against the counter a few times each. This will release air bubbles that are in the batter and prevent your macaron shells from cracking.
- Let your trays sit for a while so the shells will dry out a little bit. I usually leave about 20-40 minutes, depending on how humid the day is. You’ll know they’re ready when you gently touch the surface of a macaron and it seems dry.
- Pre-heat the oven to 300°F.
- Bake one tray at a time.
- Bake for 4 minutes, rotate tray.
- Bake for 4 more minutes, check if it needs to be rotated again. You will know if it needs to be rotated again depending on how the macarons are baking. Take a look at them, if one side seems taller then the other, maybe you have to rotate the tray again.
- Bake for around 2-4 more minutes. Really keep an eye out, not to overbake.
- When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet.
- Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
- Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.
French Buttercream
- Start by bringing a small pot with about 1 inch of water to a boil.
- In the bowl of your mixer place yolks, sugar, vanilla, and bourbon (or liquid of choice). Whisk until combined over the pan of boiling water.
- Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the water at all.
- Whisk mixture until yolks reach 155F.
- Transfer bowl to the mixer stand, and start whisking the yolk-sugar mixture at high speed until fluffy and stiff, for 7-8 minutes.
- Add butter to the mixer, one tablespoon at a time, scraping the bowl if necessary.
- Mixture should come together and form a creamy, smooth, yellowish, thick buttercream.
To assemble
- Pipe some of the buttercream on top of a macaron shell and top it with another shell.
Storage
- Store macarons in the fridge for up to 5 days, and in the freezer for up to 2 months, in an airtight container.
Your macaron recipes never fails! I’m so confident when making macarons now! Thank you for this amazing recipe! It’s a keeper.
Hello!! Can you add food coloring to this frosting on this recipe? I notice it’s made a bit differently. Maybe a silly question. Haha
thank you !
I’ve made two different macaron recipes of yours! The cookies and cream and the hot chocolate. Cookies and cream were undermixed, but otherwise turned out great! The hot chocolate, i mixed perfectly, but they had no feet and cracked, so I assumed I didn’t let them rest long enough, and also oven temp wasn’t hot enough? But either way, I’m determined to master these!! Hehe! Thank you for your blog! It’s so helpful!
So, yes you can def add food coloring to the frosting.
And about the macarons having no feet and cracking, it could be a number of things, yes not resting enough, it could be weak meringue (under whipped in this case), it could be the cocoa powder you’re using too. Make sure the cocoa powder you’re using has low fat content also, I use hersheys and it has one of the lowest amounts of cocoa in it.
Oh! I never thought about the cocoa powder part!! Thank you! Good to know! 😃
Hi Camilla!
I was wondering if it would be ok to increase the sugar in the French buttercream just a tad bit more – I know it’s supposed to be less sweet than American buttercream but I feel like my macarons need a bit more sweetness to it! Do you know how much I can increase it?
I’d add a couple more tbsp.
Hello. I made these, and the shells came out perfectly. However, it was way too sweet for my family. I’m thinking of decreasing the total amount of sugar in the recipe by 1/3 to see how they taste. Do you think it would be best to reduce both of the sugars by 1/3, or just reduce one of the sugars by 68 g? If I just reduce thur amount of one of the sugars, which do you recommend?
I dont recommend reducing the sugar at all. It’s not about taste, sugar is very important for the structure of the shell. I explain in detail the science behind it here: https://www.piesandtacos.comsugar-role-in-macarons/
Quick question: can you make the buttercream the night before?
yes you can. make sure to let it come to room temperature and give it a quick whisk before using.
Thank you very much
Could you use amaretto in the buttercream?
For sure, you could add a little bit 🙂
Holy crap!!! These are amazing, and they taste so good! My mother tried one after I finished filling them, and she said that it was the first macaroon she she has eaten that was delicious in a long time. Thank you so much.
That’s amazing to hear! thank you so much!!
Hi! Can I use this recipe for a french method?
I tried that last week, the feet were very small.
Hello Camila,
I was wondering if I could use regular flour instead of almond flour, or if I absolutely have to use almond flour. I haven’t made this recipe yet, so I just wanted to ask ahead of time. I’m hoping to make it soon and I’m very excited.
Thank you so much!.
Yes you can, but decrease it a bit. Use around 95 grams of all purpose flour instead.
Will using different flour effect the batter?
Yes, I’m rotating them! They usually crack within the first half if they’re going to crack. On the last batch it was half/half for the first tray, and on the second tray, all cracked except for 1!
do you have an oven thermometer?
No, would you recommend getting one?
I wanted to mention I do have a convection option that only goes up to 300 degrees Fahrenheit, but I wasn’t sure what the cook time conversion is for 300 degrees.