Gather all of your materials before starting to make macarons. Measure out all ingredients. Line two baking sheets with silicon mats. And fit a large piping bag with a round tip. You want everything ready to go when you need it.
Sift almond flour, pistachio flour, and powdered sugar. Set aside.
Place the aquafaba in the bowl of a mixer.
Start whipping on low speed for about 1 minute, once it starts to foam up, add cream of tartar.
Whip for another minute, until it starts getting white and thick like soup.
At this point, raise speed to high, start to add granulated sugar, slowly, a bit at a time.
Continue to whip until the aquafaba achieves stiff peaks.
The whole whipping, from beginning to end, should last about 10 minutes.
Add sifted dry ingredients to whipped aquafaba. Start folding with a spatula slowly. Add food coloring at the beginning of the macaronage, if using any.
Fold forming a letter J with the spatula.
You will fold until the batter is flowing slowly but effortlessly off the spatula. To test it out, you can grab a teaspoon of batter and place it on a baking sheet, watch how it behaves for 1 minute. If the batter smooths out the top, it means you are ready to go. If batter forms a pointy tip, you have more folding to do. But be very careful. You also don’t want to overfold. Just fold a couple more times, and test again.
I’ll reinforce that you really don’t want to over fold the batter, so always stop before that happens, and then keep folding and testing as you go.
This is a very important part of making macarons, and telling if the batter is ready is a skill that comes with a lot of practice. Vegan macaron batter will very easily become over mixed!
My favorite way of testing is to grab a spatula full of batter and hold it over the bowl. And then, watch how the batter falls off the spatula. If it keeps falling non stop, but still slowly, I know the batter is ready. If the batter stops falling off the spatula while there is still quite a bit of batter in the spatula, I know it needs to be folded longer.
Transfer batter to the piping bag.
Pipe 1 1/2” circles on a baking sheet lined with silicon mat. I usually use 2 sheets. This will depend on how big you pipe your macarons.
Slam the trays against the counter to release air bubbles.
Use a toothpick to pop any remaining bubbles.
Let trays rest for 30-45 minutes until the shells are dry. Test this by touching a macaron gently with your finger.
Pre-heat oven to 285 Fahrenheit.
Bake each tray separately.
Remember to rotate the tray every 5 minutes, to ensure even baking.
Bake for a total of 20 minutes, or until the macarons are easily coming off the silicon mat.
Baking time might vary depending on your oven.
Let macarons cool down before filling.
Vegan Pistachio Buttercream
Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Cream for 1 minute until fluffy.
Add pistachio flour and powdered sugar. Cream for another minute until smooth.
Add vanilla.
If mixture seems too stiff, add a tiny amount of the milk of your choice, about 1/2 teaspoon. If mixture seems too runny, add a bit more sifted powdered sugar. Adjust accordingly until you obtain the desired consistency.
Pistachio Flour
To make the pistachio flour, grind about 1 cup of pistachios in the food processor. I use a small food processor, as it works best with this amount of nuts.
However, you have to be extremely careful not to over process the mixture, otherwise the pistachio starts to turn into a paste, as you grind it out and it releases oils. You want this mixture to be dry.
Once you’ve processed it, sift this mixture to obtain the dry powdered pistachio flour.
Place the bigger crumbs back in the food processor and briefly process them to obtain more flour. Sift out the big pieces.
You will use 1/4 cup of pistachio flour in the recipe for the shells and another 1/4 cup for the Vegan Pistachio Buttercream Filling.
Remember to process the nuts just enough not to form a paste. The pistachio flour needs to have the same consistency as the almond flour does. You will have some big pieces of ground pistachio left back in your sifter, I used those big crumbs of pistachio to top the white chocolate drizzle after the macarons were assembled, for a cute decoration.
It will also be fine to have bigger pistachio pieces to make the buttercream, but when it comes to making the macaron shells, you really don’t want any bigger pieces in there.
To assemble
Place pistachio buttercream in a piping bag.
Pipe a dollop of buttercream on top of half of the shells. Top with another shell.
You can drizzle some vegan white chocolate on top of the macarons and sprinkle some chopped pistachios, I also sprinkled some crumbled dried rose petals for an extra touch.
Let macarons mature in the fridge overnight before serving. Preferably, I like to let my vegan macarons mature for 48 hours, actually. It makes them much softer.
Storage
Macarons will store really well in the fridge for up to 5 days, or in the freezer for up to 2 months.
Notes
Aquafaba is the water you obtain from cooking chickpeas (or other legumes). The aquafaba I use is water drained from a chickpea can. I prefer low or no sodium chickpea water, mainly because of the taste, I feel like the salted chickpea water adds a weird taste to meringues and such. Some people like to boil their own chickpeas to obtain the aquafaba, and you can do that, but make sure to study what are the best ratios water:chickpeas so your aquafaba is concentrated enoughAquafaba: I used to reduce the aquafaba before. But lately, I haven’t been reducing it anymore, and it works just fine. If you do want to reduce the aquafaba, place 150 grams of aquafaba in a small saucepan and bring to a boil, simmer until it reduces to about half. I recommend using the aquafaba straight from the chickpea can.Macaronage: If you are acquainted with making regular (egg white) macarons, one of the clues about knowing when the batter is ready to be piped, is when you can grab some batter with the spatula and start drawing a figure 8, if the batter doesn’t break up as you draw a few figure 8 shapes, that means the batter should be ready. However, I am learning with vegan macarons that it’s optimal to stop folding the batter right before it reaches this stage. Please watch my videos on youtube, as you can see in the videos what the batter should look like.Thick batter: If the batter is too thick while mixing, add a teaspoon of aquafaba as you mix, until you obtain the perfect consistency.Oven thermometer: Please make sure to have an oven thermometer! I receive a lot of troubleshooting questions and the great majority are issues caused due to not having an oven thermometer. Read this post for more detailed information about how important this is.Oven temperature: Please experiment with your own oven temperature. Temperatures will vary depending on your oven and technique. It’s important to experiment and see what works best for your own oven. In my old oven I used to bake this same recipe at 310ºF. However, with my new oven, I bake it at 285ºF. This comes to show that the temperature will vary greatly depending on your own oven. Please experiment and find out what works best for you.Troubleshooting: if your macarons are exploding, flattening out, with the feet spreading to the sides, that can mean a few things:1- hot oven (make sure to have oven thermometer and experiment with the optimal oven temperature for your oven).2- over mixed batter. It’s really easy to over mix vegan macaron batter. Mix it just until it starts to flow. Watch the videos on my youtube channel for reference.3- under whipped meringue: make sure the meringue has really stiff peaks. It can take some time. Just be patient.