First time Macarons!

Two days ago, I made macarons for the first time!! I think they came out pretty good, but there's always room for improvement.

I adapted the recipe from My Food Geek's Almost Foolproof Macaron recipe.

First, I weighed out all of the ingredients. 

Since I was making salted caramel macarons, I made the filling first: the salted caramel buttercream :D Mmmmm... yummy caramel...

After the caramel cooled, I transferred the caramel into another bowl, added the pieces of butter, and whipped them with a hand mixer

Next, I mixed the freshly ground almond meal, powdered sugar, and the first container of aged egg whites together in a bowl with some food coloring to get a caramel-like color for the shells (sorry! I forgot to take a picture of that). Then I started to whip the other container of egg whites. As they were whipping, I made the sugar syrup. When the syrup reached to about 240 °F and the whites had formed soft peaks, I slowly added the syrup to the beating egg whites. I probably should've added it a bit slower... hence all of the syrup sticking to the side of the bowl... X_X

Stop beating the egg whites and sugar syrup mixture once it starts to cool down. It look nice and marshmallow-y... and be really tasty! :D

Then, take all of the meringue out and mix it with the almond paste mixture.

Next, pipe the macaron shells on baking sheets with a regular round tip. Each shell should be about 3cm in diameter. I found a template online... just to make things more uniform and easier. :D 

Note: make sure to let these rest. I had them rest for almost an hour.

In a 320 °F oven, bake each batch one at a time for about 15 minutes... then.... VOILA!

Take the caramel buttercream out of the fridge, add the salt, and whip until combined. Put the buttercream in a piping bag and start filling the shells!

Overall, they came out better than expected. I read so many comments on other blogs about how some people couldn't get the feet to form, meringues falling flat, and shell cracking, which lead me to be super cautious. I guess it paid off!! I can't wait to make these again!