The perfect Valentine's Day Macarons - Bright red shells, finished with confetti heart sprinkles and filled with a dark chocolate American buttercream frosting. This macaron recipe is a riff on my basic macaron shell recipe, which can be adapted to suit whatever flavour you like!
Hiii and happy February! We have snuck off to New Zealand - we arrived a few days ago, and OH MAN it is so nice to be home. We arrived just in the peak of late summer / stone fruit / all the delicious foods season and I am loving it so much.
I worked my wee butt off shooting things before I left so that I would have things to share with you when I was away, which meant that there was a lot of pink and red and sprinkles happening in my kitchen in January, which I was absolutely not mad about. I’m not huge on celebrating Valentine’s day itself, but I will never turn down pink and sprinkles.
While my Valentine’s content this year has nothing on this extravaganza that we made last year, I did want to do a little spin on some macarons after I got some super cute sprinkles. I took my regular vanilla bean mac recipe, and filled them with a dark chocolate American buttercream, which is sweet and fudgy and a perfect match for the shells.
A note on adding sprinkles to the tops of macaron shells - I have learnt the hard way that you do need to be a little picky when choosing which sprinkles to use. Anything that is shiny sugar balls tends to melt and make holes in your shell, and the waxy jimmies don’t do super well either, so you want to go for confetti style sprinkles, sanding sugar, or non pareils. I just sprinkle them on directly after piping, before I leave them to sit and dry off.
A few wee tips:
- All my macaron tips are here in this post!
- When it comes to using food colouring, to get this vibrant red colour I needed quite a lot. I used a red gel food colouring from Americolor. Add it in at the meringue stage so that you can tweak as needed without over mixing your batter. Remember that the colour will lighten a little as you mix in the dry ingredients, but will then darken a little in the oven. I also added a touch of black food colouring (put it on the end of a toothpick and add it a little at a time so you don’t add too much) to help deepen the red colour.
❤️ Made this recipe and love it? ❤️
I would LOVE for you to leave me a review and star rating below to let me know how you liked it! Also, please make sure to tag me on Instagram!
Answers to your baking questions
Over the years, many of you have asked me questions about:
- baking in grams
- adjusting oven temperatures
- what kind of salt to use
- and many more!
I've curated and answered them all for your easy reference in this frequently asked questions post!
Valentine's Macarons - Vanilla Bean Macarons with Dark Chocolate American Buttercream
- Prep Time: 45 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes plus drying and resting time
- Yield: 24 macarons 1x
Description
The perfect Valentine's Day Macarons - Bright red shells, finished with confetti heart sprinkles and filled with a dark chocolate American buttercream frosting.
Ingredients
Macaron Shells
- 170g ground almonds
- 300g powdered sugar
- 180g egg whites, at room temperature
- 160g sugar
- Red gel food colouring
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
- Sprinkles, to finish
Dark Chocolate Buttercream
- 150g good quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
- 195g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ¾ tsp salt
- 150g powdered sugar, sifted
- ½ tsp vanilla bean paste
- 70g dutch process cocoa, sifted
- 2-3 Tbsp heavy cream
Instructions
MACARON SHELLS
- Preheat oven to 300˚f / 150˚c, and position the oven rack in the centre of the oven. Using a round cookie cutter or the base of a large piping tip (something about 1.5 inches in diameter), draw a "template" for your macarons on a piece of parchment paper, leaving about ¾" between each circle.
- Combine the almond meal and powdered sugar together in a large bowl. Sift the mixture twice, to ensure there are no large lumps and that the mixture is properly aerated. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Gradually add the sugar, increase the mixer speed, and whip on high until the meringue starts to firm up. Add pink red food colour a few drops at a time, until the desired colour is reached.
- Add vanilla and mix until incorporated. Continue to whip until the meringue forms stiff peaks (there is a good example here).
- Remove the bowl from the mixer. Add half of the ground almond and powdered sugar mixture, and fold into the meringue. You want to deflate the meringue just a little at this stage, to combine the meringue and ground almond mixture.
- Add the remaining ground almond mixture, and stir lightly to combine. Now comes the important part - mixing the batter to the correct consistency. Again, this video does a good job of explaining it. Fold the mixture in a series of 'turns', deflating the batter by spreading it against the side of the bowl. Turn the bowl slightly and repeat the movement - scooping the batter from the bottom of the bowl, and spreading it against the side. Continuously check the consistency of the batter - you want it to flow like lava when you lift the spatula from the bowl, and you should be able to 'draw' a figure 8 with it, without the batter breaking (again, watch lots of videos to get an idea! They help so much). This step can take some practice until you know what it should feel and look like. If in doubt you are better to under mix them than over mix them - the process of putting the batter into the bag and piping out will help mix a little too.
- Fit a large pastry bag with a medium sized round tip, such as an ateco #805. Place the macaron template on a sheet pan, and place a second piece of parchment over it. Holding the piping bag at a 90˚ angle to the surface, pipe out the batter into blobs the size of the circles drawn on the template. Finish off each piped circle with a little "flick" of your wrist to minimise the batter forming a point (it will still form a small one, but we can get rid of this with banging). Remove the template from under the macarons.
- Hold the baking sheet in two hands, and carefully but firmly, evenly bang it against the bench. Repeat this a few more times - this will get rid of any air bubbles, remove points on the top, and help them to spread out slightly.
- Repeat the piping and banging process until you have used up all of the batter - I usually make three sheet pans worth. Sprinkle the tops of the macarons with the sprinkles.
- Allow the macarons to dry at room temperature for approximately 30 minutes, or until they form a skin that you can touch without your finger sticking to them. This time will drastically vary depending on the humidity.
- About fifteen minutes before you are going to bake the macarons, place a spare sheet pan in the oven to preheat - this is going to be used to place under the pan with the macarons on it, to double up, which should help with even baking. Bake the macarons one sheet at a time - place the sheet with the macarons on the preheated sheet, and place in the oven.
- Bake for approximately 18 minutes, rotating the pan once during the cooking process, and checking for doneness after 15 minutes. The macarons should develop a foot (the ruffled part on the bottom of the macaron), and bake without browning. To see if they are done - press down lightly on a shell. If the foot gives way, it needs a little longer, if it is stable, then it is close to being done. Test a macaron shell - if you can peel it away cleanly from the paper, they are done. If they are stable but cannot yet peel away cleanly, give them another minute or so. Again, this part takes a little trial and error depending on your oven. If they seem done but do not peel away cleanly, do not worry - there is a little trick for that!
- Remove from the oven, and allow to cool on the sheet pan for 10 minutes before peeling off the parchment paper and allowing to cool completely on a wire rack. Repeat the baking with the remaining trays, using the same spare sheet pan to double up.
- If your macs do not peel away cleanly, place them, on the parchment paper, into the freezer for 5-10 minutes, then peel away from the paper.
- Store cooled macarons in an airtight container until ready to use.
DARK CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM
- Melt the dark chocolate in 15 second increments in the microwave, stirring well between each until melted. Set aside to cool completely.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed until light and fluffy, approx. 4 minutes. Add the salt, powdered sugar, vanilla bean paste, and cocoa, and mix until smooth, scraping down the sides once or twice. Add the melted chocolate and mix well until silky. If needed, add cream 1 tbsp at a time to get the frosting to a pipeable consistency. Transfer to a bag fitted with a large french star tip (I used an ateco #866).
ASSEMBLY
- Pair each macaron shell with another of a similar size. Pipe a circle of buttercream on one half, and then sandwich with the second shell. Macarons taste best if you 'mature' them in the fridge overnight to let the flavours meld, but they are perfect eaten immediately too! Store leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge.
Notes
Dark Chocolate buttercream from Butter and Brioche via The Brick Kitchen
Keywords: macarons, valentine's day, gluten free, chocolate, american buttercream