I’m obsessed with macarons. My first attempt at macarons of any kind was a disaster. Although they had the requisite frilly feet, they had extremely brittle shells that practically fell apart if you looked at them too hard. The insides were underbaked and wet. My second attempt was an improvement - smooth tops with tiny feet. They were acceptable, but far from perfect.

That was when I decided to move on to chocolate macarons. The results can be seen in the photo above. I’ve since found chocolate macarons to be much easier to bake than any other flavour. The lighter coloured ones seem to brown too quickly.

These are my latest attempt at chocolate macarons. This particular recipe which calls for Italian meringue is a keeper. The extra step of boiling sugar syrup, in my opinion, is well worth the effort, especially if you like your macarons with beautifully high feet.

I made these pink macarons in the same batch as the Ispahan. The macaron shells are sandwiched with raspberry buttercream.

I really like the contrast between the pink macarons and the buttercream. A little too pretty to eat, at least I think so.

During my phase of macaron madness, I’d read about Pierre Herme’s famous Ispahan on several food blogs and decided to try recreating it at home, even though I’d never tasted the real thing before.

The pink macarons were made using the Italian meringue method, which I’ve found to give more consistent results and to be more stable than using French meringue. Since I’d divided the meringue into 2 batches (one for pink macarons and the other for chocolate ones) and I’m not exactly the fastest worker when it comes to baking (an unfortunate side effect of being somewhat of a perfectionist in the kitchen), it was ideal that the meringue remained stable for the second batch of macaron batter while I worked on the first.

The result: large pink macarons sandwiched with rose scented italian meringue buttercream, surrounded by fresh raspberries and a lychee in the middle, topped with a single raspberry and rose petal.

Even though I found the macarons to be a little on the sweet side, I was still ridiculously pleased with the results!