Today we are going to make these beautiful whimsical macarons, they are airbrushed and decorated with sprinkles! They are filled with a white chocolate buttercream! This white chocolate macaron filling is so delicious and easy to make!
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword macarons, white chocolate
Prep Time 2 hourshours
Cook Time 40 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours40 minutesminutes
Servings 20macarons
Calories 80kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
100gramswhite granulated sugar
4gramsegg white powder optionalread notes below
100gramsegg whites
105gramsalmond flour
105gramspowdered sugar
Food coloring if desiredI used robin’s egg and periwinkle
White Chocolate Buttercream
140gramswhite chocolate1 cups
113gramsunsalted buttersoftened (1 stick)
187 to 250gramspowdered sugar1.5 to 2 cups
2tbspmilk or wateronly if necessary to thin out the buttercream
1tspvanilla extract
Food coloringsky blue and periwinkle
Decoration
Airbrush
Sprinkles
Airbrush food coloringperiwinkle and blue sheen from americolor
Instructions
Prep the ingredients and tools
Before you start, get all of the ingredients ready. Prepare a large piping bag, fitted with a large round tip, I use a 1/4” diameter tip, or a Wilton 12. Set aside.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mat.
I use a baking mat with the macaron template already in it.
Wipe the tools such as bowls, spatulas, and silicone mats with vinegar if desired, this helps getting rid of any grease particles that might be in the tools.
Measure out all of the ingredients.
Sift the powdered sugar and almond flour together. Set it aside.
Start pre-heating the oven. I pre-heat my large oven to 310ºF for 60 to 90 minutes, this helps with temperature fluctuations. I pre-heat the countertop oven for 30 to 45 minutes.
Making the Swiss Meringue
Place a bowl over a pan with barely simmering water. Add the sugar and egg white powder to the bowl if using. If you’re not using egg white powder simply skip it, nothing needs to be changed in the recipe.
Whisk the sugar and egg white powder so it doesn’t clump up.
Add the egg whites to the bowl and whisk until 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.
Also, don’t overheat the sugar syrup, you are just looking to melt the sugar, no need to bring it to a certain temperature.Transfer the syrup to the bowl of a stand mixer. Before transferring the syrup, you might consider whipping the bottom of the bowl with a towel so the water doesn’t fall into the mixer bowl.
With the whisk attachment, start whisking mixture on low (speed 2 of the KitchenAid) for about 30 seconds, then gradually start increasing speed to medium. Whisk on medium (speed 4) for one to two minutes, until the mixture is white and starting to become fluffy. Raise the speed to medium or medium-high and whip for a few minutes until stiff peaks are formed. I like to finish whipping the meringue on speed 6 of the KitchenAid.
It takes me about 13 to 15 minutes to whip the meringue, but you shouldn’t go by time, go by what the meringue is supposed to look like because a lot of things can affect whipping time, such as the quality of the eggs, the weather, how powerful your mixer is, and more.
Once the meringue gets glossy and you start seeing streaks formed by the whisk, and the meringue raising in the center of the whisk, it might be time to stop.
You don’t want to over whip the meringue at this point because that can cause several issues, mainly hollow macarons.
Whisk until stiff peaks have formed. When you pull the whip up, the peak should be stiff and shooting straight up, with possibly a slight bend at the top, but not bending to the side.
Also when you swirl the whisk around in the bowl to collect the meringue, you should feel some resistance from the meringue. And when you look on the bottom of the whisk the meringue collected should be forming soft but defined waves.
Macaronage
Pour the sifted powdered sugar and almond flour into the stiff meringue.
Since we are making two different color shells from the same batch, let’s stir the batter just until the dry ingredients are incorporated with the meringue. As soon as you see no more streaks of dry ingredients, stop stirring.
Let’s divide the batter between two different bowls now. Work with one bowl at a time and keep the remaining one covered meanwhile.
To the first batter I added a bit of robins egg by americolor, the color didn’t come through so well and I had to stop adding food coloring and folding the batter or it was going to end up over mixed.
But that’s ok because I will air brush the macarons later anyway.
Stop folding the batter when it’s flowing off the spatula slowly and effortlessly. You should be able to pick up some batter with the spatula and draw several figure 8s with the batter that’s flowing off the spatula without having it break up, and even after the batter breaks up, it should still continue to flow slowly off the spatula.
The batter that’s falling back into the bowl should take 10 to 15 seconds to incorporate with the batter that’s already in the bowl.
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 or silicone mat, 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.
Transfer the batter to the piping bag. I also like to seal the top with a bag tie, so the batter doesn’t dry out and it gives you more control while piping because there’s no risk of the batter escaping through the top of the piping bag.
Now let’s work with the second batter. I added periwinkle to this batter. Look at that beautiful color. Fold until the perfect consistency is achieved as I’ve explained before. The batter should be flowing slowly and effortlessly off the spatula. Transfer it to a piping bag fitted with a round tip.
To pipe
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 on the surface of the shells.
Resting or not resting the shells
Let the trays sit for a while so the shells will dry out before baking, if you are resting the macarons. 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.
To do the no-rest method, you can bake the trays immediately.
The no-rest method will depend on your oven and baking sheets you are using.
I can do the no-rest method on my small counter top oven, but not on my large oven, because the temperature is too uneven on the large oven.
Baking
On my large oven I bake the macarons at 310ºF, and on the small countertop oven I bake them at 290ºF. I pre-heat both ovens for quite a bit of time. I pre-heat the large oven for 60 to 90 minutes, and the small oven for 30 minutes or so.
Bake one tray at a time.
Bake for 5 minutes, rotate the tray. This step is not necessary, I don’t rotate the trays on the small oven, but I have to do so on my large oven, otherwise the macarons will be lopsided. Not all bakers have to rotate the tray.
I 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. Also try to touch the top of a macaron and it shouldn’t feel soft, if it’s still soft, keep baking.
Remove from the oven and bake the other tray.
Let the macarons cool down before proceeding with the decorating and filling.
To decorate the macarons
I airbrushed my macarons with the periwinkle airbrush food coloring, and also a couple of them with blue sheen from americolor.
I drizzled some white chocolate over the macarons. I colored the melted white chocolate with some color mill candy food coloring and drizzled over the macarons. And then put some sprinkles on top.
Now let’s make the white chocolate buttercream for the filling.
Melt the chocolate in the microwave, microwave it for 15 second intervals stirring in between.
Let the white chocolate cool down for about 15 minutes, until it’s not warm anymore.
Beat the butter with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes until creamy and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and the melted white chocolate to the bowl.
Mix to combine
If the mixture is too dry add some milk to help it come together.
Add more milk as needed. And if the buttercream is too soft you can add a little bit more powdered sugar to make it stiffer.
Now add the vanilla extract and mix to combine.
We are making a bicolor buttercream, so split the buttercream between two different bowls.
To one of the bowls I added sky blue food coloring, and periwinkle to the other.
Mix to combine each color.
Lay a piece of plastic wrap on the counter. Spread the perinwinkle and the blue frosting next to each other. And then roll the frosting into a log.
Place the log of frosting inside a piping bag lined with the tip of choice. I am using an Ateco 869.
Pipe the frosting on the bottom shells of the macarons and place a decorated shell on top.
Storage
I store the macarons in an air tight container in the fridge for up to 5 days, and in the freezer for 1 to 2 months.
Notes
Vinegar: Before starting make sure to wipe down the bowls, whisks, silicone mats and everything you are going to use with vinegar, to avoid any grease particles of coming into contact with the meringue and batter.Egg white powder: Egg white powder is not the same as meringue powder, but some people use meringue powder in the place of 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 and add a layer of protein to the meringue. I recommend experimenting with it if you can find it. I use 4 grams for each 100 grams of egg whites. You can read more about Egg White Powder here.Food coloring: Make sure to use gel or powder food coloring, not liquid. If you are a beginner macaron baker, I recommend going easy on the food coloring, as it can alter your batter a lot, and it can take extra mixing time, specially if you continue to add the food coloring as you do the macaronage. Read more about food coloring 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 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.Tray rotation: Lots of bakers don’t have to rotate the trays 180 degrees in the oven after 5 minutes, but I do have to with my oven, or I will get lopsided macarons. Please adjust this according to your oven.Macaron School: Check out Macaron School for many articles such as macaron troubleshooting, the science behind macarons, the tools I use, tips, frequently asked questions, and much more!