How to Make Macarons: the Meringue Stage (video tutorial)

Hello macaron baker friends! Here’s an exclusive post. Today I don’t bring a macaron recipe (but you can find plenty of macaron recipes and macaron ideas here), yet I bring to you a guide on how to make macarons, and today we will talk about the Meringue Stage.

I am in the process of writing a macaron eBook, and yes, I have been saying this for a while, but I am working really hard on it, I want it to come out fantastic. I want this book to add a lot of value to you macaron bakers!

So being in the process of writing a macaron eBook, I find myself baking a lot of macarons, thinking about macarons, writing about macarons, photographing a lot of macarons, macarons, macarons…

And I get emails and dms all the time with questions about macarons, and specially macaron troubleshooting!

It makes me so happy to be able to help some fellow macaron bakers out there! Thanks for reaching out and trusting me with your macaron troubles!

I try my best to help in the reflection of what could be going wrong. A lot of times it’s an issue such as: hollow macarons, or shells that have no feet, tall feet, feet that come out… If you are a macaron baker, you’ve seen them all.

And you know that part of your journey is to be able to identify what is causing those issues, in order to achieve perfect macarons!

In a series of blog posts, I will try to explain in better details each stage of making macarons using the Swiss Method. And you will be able to identify what your batter is supposed to look like at each step, which will be very useful in order to identify and learn what may be causing you macaron troubles.

The Meringue

Using the Swiss method, we start by making a syrup of sugar and egg whites, by whisking them together over a double boiler until the sugar melts.

Once the sugar has melted, you pour the syrup in the bowl of an electric mixer and start whipping the meringue until you reach stiff peaks. And we will talk about exactly what the peaks are supposed to look like, and how to whip the meringue in order to best achieve that.

How to whip meringue when making macarons? How to know when the meringue is whipped? How to recognize the stiff peaks in the meringue when making macarons? These are frequently asked questions, and things you should be observing, because if you are having issues making macarons, the meringue might just be where you are making the mistake.

Whipping the perfect meringue for macarons

After you’ve transferred the meringue to the bowl of the mixer, turn the mixer on LOW and whisk for 30 seconds or so, until mixture becomes foamy and frothy.

Start raising speed to medium, where you will whip for 1-2 minutes until you start to see streaks of the whisk being formed on the meringue. In the picture below I couldn’t capture the streaks from the whisk because the mixer moves way too fast for me to capture, however, this is what the meringue is supposed to look like, very white, thick, but still soupy.

Once you identify this stage, you can start raising speed to high. Whisk on high for another 1-2 minutes until the meringue looks exactly like this.

The meringue is ready when the peaks resemble a bird’s beak.

I will go further and say it should resemble an eagle’s beak to be more precise.

So if that’s the shape of your meringue, you’re right on!

How to know if the meringue is not whipped enough? The peak will be too long, and in that case, the meringue isn’t ready yet.

How to know if you whipped the meringue too much? The peaks will be too stiff, short, and sticking up. The meringue will be separating into chunks, instead of having an elastic consistency. That’s when you know your meringue is overwhipped.

What happens if I don’t whip the meringue properly when making macarons?

Several things might result from not whipping the meringue properly. So let’s talk macaron troubleshooting!

Here is a quick chart that might help you.

If you are kind of new to macaron baking, it might be harder to identify what your mistake is when making macarons. However, the more you practice, the better you will become at identifying what could have went wrong, and knowing more about troubleshooting can help you adjust for next time.

So basically, if you UNDER-whip the meringue, these are likely things to happen:

• Shells with no feet (which can also be caused by other things such as not enough resting time, and low oven temperatures)
• Hollow shells (also can be caused by overwhipping the meringue, underfolding the batter, not tapping the macaron tray before resting, etc)
• Cracked shells (which can also be caused by hot oven temperature, or not tapping the macaron trays)
• Wet batter (which may cause macarons to stick to the baking pan, not form a bottom skin, become mishapen)

If you OVER-whip the meringue, here are some possible results:

• Tall feet (which can also be caused by high oven temperature)
• Bumpy shells (when you overwhip the meringue, the macaronage might become a hard process, since the meringue will be too stiff to incorporate fully with the dry ingredients, causing your shells to have bumps and points on top when you pipe the macarons)
• Hollow shells (look above to see other things that could cause hollow shells)

Anyway, you want to aim for getting this stage of making the meringue JUST right, and this way, your chances of nailing the results will increase. And, of course, you will have to pay attention to the other aspects of making macarons such as the macaronage, the oven temperature, etc. We will cover those some other time!

I hope you enjoyed today’s post and found it useful in your macaron journey! Don’t forget to also check out the video where I show you how I make this stage work!

Here is the video tutorial on Youtube.

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