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.

I use a baking mat with the macaron template already in it. You can make your own or print it from the internet, and just place it under silicon mat, or parchment paper. I recommend using a silicon mat if you want more uniform bottoms.

Measure out all of your ingredients.

Sift powdered sugar and almond flour together. Set aside.

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.

With the whisk attachment, start whisking mixture on low for about 30 seconds, then gradually start increasing speed to medium. Whisk on medium for one minute, until mixture is white and starting to become fluffy. Raise speed to high for 2-3 more 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. You will notice the bird’s beak shape the peak will form and that will tell you the meringue can stop being whipped.

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 using just one.

If using more than one color to color the batter, start folding the dry ingredients into the batter and mix them just until you don’t see any streaks of dry ingredients any longer. Once that happens, you can split the batter between the number of bowls correspondent to the colors you want to use in your batter.

So in this case, once I saw there were no more dry ingredients in the macaron batter, I split it between two bowls.

Work quickly, with each color, one at a time, folding the batter until ready, then transferring it to a piping bag. Move on to the next color and do this until the entire batter is ready. Then you can start piping.

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, and you might have to have a couple failed batches before you get this right.

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 silicon 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.

This is the most important part about making macarons in my opinion.

Once you’ve piped as many 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 325F.

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 than the other, maybe you have to rotate the tray again.

Bake for around 4 minutes or so. Really keep an eye out, not to overbake. I would say I bake for a total of 18-20 minutes.

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.

Cream butter at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer. Slowly add sugar and lime zest to butter and keep creaming at medium speed for a few minutes, until mixture is light in color and fluffy.

Add eggs, one at a time, waiting until egg has been completely incorporated before adding the next one.

Add salt. And finally, add lime juice, and stir on low speed.

Pour mixture in a small sauce pan and bring it to a boil over medium heat, while stirring nonstop.

You are looking for a very thick and creamy curd. Don’t stop stirring, don’t look away.

The temperature of the curd should be reaching 170F.

When that happens, remove from heat and pour into a heat proof bowl.

Let it cool in the fridge.

STORAGE: The shelf life of the lime curd will be up to 1 week in the fridge, and up to 3 months in the freezer, if well protected.

Sift powdered sugar and raspberry powder together. Set aside

Cream butter and cream cheese at medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer for about 1 minute. With the mixer off, add all of the powdered sugar, and powdered raspberry in.

Mix on low speed until sugar is incorporated. Once they are incorporated, turn speed to medium and cream for 1-2 minutes until very fluffy. Add vanilla and milk in, beat for another 30-45 seconds.

If the consistency of the frosting seems a bit runny, add more powdered sugar in it to make it thicker. If the consistency of the frosting seems too stiff, add more milk, only 1 teaspoon at a time, as necessary.

STORAGE: Store buttercream in the fridge for up to 1 week.

Pipe a circle of Raspberry buttercream around the edges of the macaron, in a way that you have a little hole in the middle. Fill the little hole with a bit of lime curd. Don’t overfill it. Place another shell on top.

STORAGE: This Key Lime Raspberry Macaron’s shelf life is up to 3 months in the freezer, and up to 1 week in the refrigerator. I don’t recommend keeping it out of the fridge unless it’s for just a couple hours.