French Macarons

I saw a picture of French macaron (macaroon?  I'm not sure which is the proper spelling) cookies a few weeks ago and decided I wanted to make some for Simran's first birthday party because they are the girliest looking food I have ever seen.  I don't like to serve untested recipes to guests, so I'm doing a dry run and making a batch this week to take to my monthly book club.  I found what looks like a reliable recipe and lots of troubleshooting notes on HowToCookThat, so that's the recipe I'll be using.  I'm keeping things simple and just dying the cookies and saving flavorants for the filling, as recommended by the recipe.

Ingredients
4 large egg whites (or 5 small) 140g (4.94 ounces)
70g (2.47 ounces) caster sugar (aka superfine sugar or baker's sugar) [*US cups 1/3 cup plus 1 tsp]
230g (8.11 ounces) pure icing sugar (aka confectioner's sugar or powdered sugar) [US cups 1 1/2 cups plus 4 tsp] OR 1 3/4 cups 230g (8.11 ounces) icing mixture [US cups 1 3/4 cups plus 4 tsp]
120g (4.23 ounces) almond meal [US cups 1 cup plus 3 teaspoons]
2g (0.07 ounces) salt (tiny pinch)
gel food colouring (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C).

2. Place egg whites and caster sugar in a bowl and mix with electric mixer until stiff enough to turn the bowl upside down without it falling out, continue to whip for 1-2 more minutes.  How long this takes will depend on your mixer.  Add gel or powdered food coloring and continue to mix for a further 20 seconds.

3. Sift the almond meal and icing sugar and salt twice, discarding any almond lumps that are too big to pass through the sieve. Fold into the egg white mixture. It should take roughly 30-50 folds using a rubber spatula.  The mixture should be smooth and a very viscous, not runny. Over-mix and your macarons will be flat and have no foot, under mix and they will not be smooth on top – see the macaron troubleshooting post for examples.

4. Pipe onto trays lined with baking paper, rap trays on the bench firmly (this prevents cracking -- in fact, drop them about a foot onto the counter a couple times, it works better), let sit for 20 minutes to an hour (you'll know they're ready when you can touch a cookie without the dough coming off on your finger), and then bake in the oven for 20 minutes.  Let cool at least five minutes before trying to remove them from the baking sheet or they'll break apart.  Check if one comes off the tray fairly cleanly, if not bake for a little longer (make sure you are using NON-stick baking paper or they will stick).  Allow to cool.

5. Pipe ganache or buttercream frosting of your choice onto half of the cookies and use the other half to make them into sandwiches.  Refrigerate up to 24 hours or freeze up to 3 months.  Let frozen macarons thaw half an hour before eating.

[Edited 3/8/13: This was the first time I've ever eaten a macaron, so I'm not sure to what extent the texture was correct (mine were mostly air inside), but they were AMAZING.  A few tips I took from online reviewers of other macaron recipes were that you have to use weight measurements -- standard volume measurements aren't precise enough for these temperamental treats -- and there were major disagreements about what sort of non-stick surface works best.  I used my electronic food scale (which I've never used any other time but own because Alton Brown said everyone should) and the amounts seemed to come out just right.  I used non-stick parchment paper (Reynolds makes the only one I could find that actually said "non-stick" on the package) and it worked perfectly (it feels exactly like my other roll of standard parchment paper, so I'm not sure if it's any different from that).  The only problem with sticking arose when I tried to remove a still-hot cookie and its top broke off its base.  Let them stand 5 minutes and you have no problem with that.  I've read that a silicone baking mat works well too but requires longer cooking times.  I ran the almond meal, sugar, and salt through my food processor, but in the future I'll also buy a sifter.  I put some of it through my sieve, but Simran was getting angry and I gave up and just threw everything in there.  It didn't affect the deliciousness or create a texture you could taste, but they had tiny visible grains on the surface that another website told me means I didn't sift enough (or at all).  One thing this recipe didn't mention but others did is that, after dropping the baking sheet to flatten out the dough, you have to let it sit for 20 minutes to an hour until a slight skin has formed around each cookie.  You know it's okay to bake them when you touch one lightly and dough doesn't come off on your finger.  I also recommend watching a YouTube video on how to pipe macarons.  And how to fill a pastry bag.  Not knowing how to pipe properly created most of my problems -- you're supposed to pipe a cookie without really moving the pastry bag, like it's an oversized dot, not draw the batter in a swirl like I did.  Please note: a little gel food coloring goes a LONG way.]