Unfortunately, the macarons I made looked nothing like the ones in the recipe did, instead coming out cracked, broken, and slightly sticky although they were turning brown whilst they were in the oven (which is why I took the macarons out when I did). I began thinking about what I did differently that could've caused the disaster, and here's what I came up with: 1) I used a hand mixer instead of a standing mixer, 2) I overbeat the egg whites/egg white mixture, 3) I used a different sized tip when piping out the batter onto the sheets, making different-sized macarons, and 4) I didn't use yellow gel food coloring (I mistakenly used yellow decorating gel). Are there any tips on how to make macarons?
I wanted to decorate the macarons for Chinese New Year, choosing yellow and red for good luck. Since I used yellow decorating gel instead of yellow gel food coloring, the macarons didn't come out yellow. In order to make the macarons yellow, I used this:
Afterwords, I tried writing "Happy Chinese New Year" (pronouced sun nein fai lock) in red on top of some of the macarons as well as the chinese character for ram for the Year of the Ram, using this:
However, after I followed the instructions to make the icing (microwave the bottle for 5-10 seconds and then knead the bottle until the icing hardens), the icing never hardened, so I ended up using a toothpick to write the characters on the macarons.
I want to try making macarons again, possibly with a new recipe, while also fixing my mistakes (such as using gel food coloring and not decorating gel).
Total Estimated Time: 4.5 hours.
Total Time Logged: 20.5 hours.
Here's what I salvaged and Happy Chinese New Year! (the word ram is written on the uppermost macaron):
