The best macaron recipe!
Remove 4 eggs from the refrigerator. Put just the egg whites into a bowl. Be careful not to get any yolk in the bowl. If you do, start again. Weigh out 105 grams of egg whites. Allow the egg whites to come to room temperature, around 1 hour.
Measure out all of the dry ingredients and set aside.
Put the almond flour and the icing sugar into a food processor and blend until the texture is very fine, 30 to 40 seconds. Do not skip this step. It is very important.
Sift the mixture into a bowl. If you notice that a lot of the mixture isn't passing through the sifter, you will need to put it back into the food processor and blend it some more. Sift again. Discard any large bits that didn't fit through the sifter (up to 1 tbsp is okay).
In the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed until they start to get foamy.
Add the granulated sugar 1 tbsp at a time. Once the meringue starts to get glossy and forms soft peaks, add the food colouring one drop at a time. A little goes a long way.
Increase the speed to medium/high and beat until firm peaks forms. Remove the whisk attachment and turn it upside down. If there's little to no movement, it is firm enough.
Remove the bowl from the stand mixer. Add 1/3 of the almond flour/icing sugar mixture to the meringue. Use a flat rubber spatula to mix the dry ingredients into the meringue. When it's mostly incorporated, add the next third and then the final third.
Use the macaronage technique you saw in the videos to deflate some of the air from the batter, being very careful not to overmix the batter. When the batter falls relatively easily off the spatula, it's ready. Keep in mind that the act of guiding the batter into the piping bag with the spatula will work the batter further.
Fit your piping bag with a large round tip, around 1/2 inch. Place your piping bag into a tall glass so that the piping bag does not fall over while you're pouring the batter into it.
Pipe the batter into 2 inch circles onto a silicone or parchment lined cookie sheet. Leave at least 2 to 3 inches between each macaron. The batter will spread a little.
Drop the cookie sheet from about 6 inches above the table onto the table, 5 or 6 times, to remove the air bubbles from inside the macarons.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Allow the macarons to rest for 35 to 45 minutes. After 35 minutes, touch one macaron. If you get any batter on your finger allow them to rest 10 more minutes and then check again.
Place one cookie sheet in the oven on a rack just below the centre of the oven. Bake one cookie sheet at a time. As soon as you close the oven door, reduce the temperature to 290 degrees.
Bake the macarons for 16 to 17 minutes. Check them at 15 minutes.
Allow the macarons to cool completely, at least 1 hour, before removing them.
Once cooled, fill them with raspberry jam. You can fill them the next day as well.
You can freeze the shells (without any filling) in an air-tight container for up to a month.