Macarons filled with cookie dough. These macarons are Valentine’s day themed, but you can use this filling any time of the year because it is absolutely delicious.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword macarons, valentines day
Prep Time 2 hourshours
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours40 minutesminutes
Servings 22macarons
Calories 95kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Macaron shells
4gramsegg white powderoptional read notes
100gramsegg whites
100gramsgranulated sugar
105gramsalmond flour
105gramspowdered sugar
pink, red, and white food coloring see notes
Edible Cookie Dough
1/2cupall-purpose flour63 grams
1/4cupunsalted butterroom temperature (56 grams)
1/3cupbrown sugar66 grams
1/2tspvanilla extract
1-2tspmilk
1/4cupmini chocolate chips
Instructions
Macaron Shells
Before you start, get all of the ingredients ready. Prepare 3 pastry bags tips lined with piping tips, one lined with a tip 1 (for the small red hearts), one lined with tip 10 (to make the pink heart shells), and one lined with tip 12 (to pipe the round white circles).
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mat.
Measure out all of the ingredients. Sift the powdered sugar and almond flour. Set it aside.
Whisk the sugar and the egg white powder (if using) in a bowl, and place it over a pan with barely simmering water. Add the egg whites to the sugar and whisk the mixture until frothy and the sugar is completely melted. It will take a couple of minutes. You can test by touching the mixture between your fingers, and if you feel any sugar granules just keep whisking the mixture over the water bath.
Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn’t touching the simmering water because you don’t want the whites to cook. Transfer the syrup to the bowl of a stand mixer.
With the whisk attachment, start whisking the syrup on low for about 30 seconds, then gradually start increasing speed to medium and whisk 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.
Whip until stiff peaks have formed. When you pull your whisk up, the peak should be stiff and shooting straight up, with possibly a slight bend at the top, but not bending down to the side.
Pour the sifted powdered sugar and almond flour into the stiff meringue.
Start folding gently forming a letter J with a spatula.
As soon as you see no more dry ingredients in the meringue, stop stirring. Divide the batter between three different bowls, and you won’t need much for the red batter since you are only making tiny hearts on top of the macarons, I probably took out one cup of batter, and had leftovers to pipe mini red shells.
Work with one bowl at a time, leaving the other ones covered meanwhile.
To the first batter I added pink food coloring, just a dash of sugar rose by The Sugar Art. Fold the batter until the perfect consistency is achieved. The batter should be flowing slowly and effortlessly off the spatula, you should be able to pick up some batter with the spatula and draw several figure 8s with the batter that’s flowing, without having the batter break up. And even after the batter breaks up, it should still continue to flow off the spatula slowly. There’s another test you can do. I call it the Teaspoon test.
Grab a teaspoon of batter and spoon onto the parchment paper or silicon mat. Wait a minute to see how it behaves.If the batter stays stiff, forming a point and doesn’t spread out, fold a little bit more, about 3 folds.Test again.
Once the batter spreads out a bit and starts to look glossy and smooth on top, on the parchment paper, it’s ready.
You don’t want your batter to be too runny either. So be careful not to over-mix. It’s always best to under-mix and test several times until the proper consistency has been achieved.
When you hold the spatula with batter on top of the bowl and the batter falls off the spatula slowly but effortlessly the batter is ready. The batter will keep flowing off the spatula non-stop, but not too quickly.
Once the first batter (pink) achieves the perfect consistency, transfer it to one of the prepared piping bags. Secure the top with a tie, so the batter doesn’t scape while piping, and to keep the batter from drying out while you work with the remaining batter. Set the piping bag aside.
Now, it’s time to work with the second batter. I added some red food coloring to the second batter. After adding food coloring, stir until the perfect consistency is achieved, like I’ve explained above.
Transfer the batter to another piping bag fitted with a number 1 tip. And secure the top with a tie.
Finally work with the final batter. Add white food coloring and fold until the batter is at the right consistency, then transfer it to a piping bag.
If you want to pipe hearts, follow these directions:
Place the piping bag at a 90 degree angle, at the top left side of the heart template. Apply pressure as you slide the bag down to the center in a diagonal, also make sure to release less batter at the bottom than at the top, because you need the batter at the bottom to be thinner in order to obtain a nice pointy tip.
Now place the piping bag on the top right corner of the heart, and apply pressure as you slide the bag down to the center in a diagonal.
After piping a few hearts, use a toothpick to help spread the batter to the edges of the heart template. Make sure to form a point at the bottom, because as they bake, the macarons will round up a little bit and if you don’t form a defined point at the bottom, your heart will have a rounded bottom.
Tap the trays against the counter or against the palm of your hand to release any air bubbles.
And pop any remaining air bubbles on the surface of the shells using a toothpick.
Let the 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. Drying time will also depend on the consistency of the meringue, on how much you’ve folded the batter, and on how much food coloring you’ve added.
You’ll know they’re ready when you gently touch the surface of a macaron and it seems dry, and doesn’t stick to your finger.
Piping the round shells with heart decoration
Place the piping bag directly 90 degrees over the center of each macaron template. Apply gentle pressure and carefully pipe for about 3 to 5 seconds, and then quickly pull the bag up twisting slightly at the top.
Once you’ve piped as many circles as you could, bang the trays against the counter or against the palm of your hand a few times each.
Use a toothpick to pop any air bubbles in the surface of the shells.
Let the shells dry until they form a skin on top. Then use the red batter to pipe a tiny heart on the top corner of the shell.
Let the heart dry completely along with the macaron shell before baking, to avoid any cracks.
Pre-heat the oven to 290F (this is the temperature I use in my current oven, temperature varies a lot from oven to oven check the notes).
Bake one tray at a time.
Bake each tray for about 15 to 20 minutes.
When baked, the macarons will have a deeper color and formed feet. If you try to move a macaron, it shouldn’t feel jiggly. If the macaron is still jiggly, keep baking.
Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the filling.
Edible Cookie Dough
Heat-treat the flour. Place the flour in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave the flour for 1 minute, stirring in between. If the flour doesn’t feel hot to the touch microwave for another 10 to 20 seconds.
Let it cool down for 5 minutes while you prepare the rest of the ingredients and start making the dough.
Beat the butter and the brown sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer for about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla, the flour, the salt and mix. If the dough is too crumbly, add the milk as needed. The dough shouldn’t be sticky, but also shouldn’t be crumbly or dry.
Add the chocolate chips and stir to combine.
Gather the dough and wrap in a piece of parchment paper or in plastic, and flatten it to a disk. Cover it and place in the fridge for about 10 minutes.
To fill the macarons
Remove the dough from the fridge, use a rolling pin to flatten it to about 3/8” thick.
Cut out pieces of dough that fit your macaron shell.
For the hearts, I cut out a slightly smaller heart, and pressed it down into the bottom shells to make it fit all the way to the edges.
For the circles, I simply used a cookie cutter that was about the same size as the macaron shell.
Another great option is to use a small round cutter, or a little heart cutter to cut out the center of the cookie dough, this way, you can place the cookie dough on the bottom of the macaron shell and fill the center with something like Nutella, ganache, sprinkles, dulce de leche, caramel, etc…
I cut out small hearts on the center of the dough circle, and then filled the macarons with Nutella using a piping bag. Using a piping bag to fill the center will make it much easier.
If you want to make sure the shells are sticking to the cookie dough filling, you can place a bit of melted chocolate, buttercream, or even Nutella between the cookie dough and the shell, since the cookie dough tends to be a bit dry and you may have problems sticking it to the shell specially if the dough has dried out, or is too cold.
To decorate
To decorate the top shells of the hearts, melt some white chocolate and place it in a piping bag and snip the end with scissors.
Drizzle a bit of white chocolate on each heart and top with chocolate sprinkles.
To serve
Let the macarons mature in the fridge for 24 to 48 hours before serving.
Storage
Store the macarons in the fridge for up to 5 days, and in the freezer for up to 1 month.
Notes
Macaron food coloring: I used a dash of sugar rose powder food coloring from The Sugar Art to make the pink batter, super red by Americolor to make the red batter, and titanium dioxide to make the white batter.Egg white powder: Egg White Powder is made of only egg whites. They help with getting fuller shells, and specially when adding a lot of food coloring to the batter, because they make the shells dry faster. I recommend experimenting with it if you can find it. I use 4 grams for each 100 grams of egg whites. If you live in a dry climate, it's best to avoid egg white powder, as it performs better in humid climates. Read more about egg white powder in macarons here.Scale: Please use a scale when measuring the ingredients for accuracy.Macaron amount: It will vary greatly depending on how big you pipe the shells, and on how runny or thick the batter is.Baking time/temperature: Baking time and temperature will vary according to your own oven. I recommend experimenting with your oven to find out the best time, temperature, position of the baking tray. Read more about how to figure out your oven here.Oven thermometer: Make sure to have an oven thermometer to bake macarons. It’s one of the most important things about making macarons. Home ovens aren’t accurate at all at telling the temperature, and even a slight 5 degree difference can make or break your whole batch.Troubleshooting: Please visit this article for troubleshooting tips.Tools: click here to see all the tools I use when making macarons.Filling: If you want to make the cookie dough filling more stable for staying outside of the fridge for up to a day, don't use the milk in the recipe, use water to make the dough come together instead.