Journey of the French Macaron Take Two!

A very good friend of mine is obsessed with macarons like me. She has been making macarons every Saturday for like the last 4 weeks and I think she has pretty much perfected them. Everytime I see a photo of her macs it just makes me want to have another go. So finally on Monday I took the leap of faith and tried again with the french method. Hmmmm I ended up spending 7 hrs at the shop making these darn things!! Yes, you did read right ... 7 HOURS!! There were tears and tantrums and also a few happy dances too. {lucky I was the only one there!! hehe}

My 1st 4 batches came out .... well not a complete distaster! Just the same as the ones I made last time!! You know, they had feet but they spread too much. I just couldn't figure out what I did wrong? This was the point where I had my little tantrum!!! Why Can't I Make MACARONS?????? gggrrrrrrrrrr. And it also didn't help that my electric hand mixer decided to die on me! Things were going down hill fast. So I thought I'd try a different recipe from a blog that I had found. I figured what the hay! what have I got to loss? WELL! I lost of whole lot of my lovely almond flour and eggs .. Yes that's right! They were a complete DISASTER!! OMG! They were horrible!! No feet, Cracked and just horrid. I didn't even bother to taste they when straight in the bin!! You can imagine by this stage well there was nothing left in the tank. I was not a happy baker at all. Just when I was about to give up and go home, something inside of me just kept going "Vanessa!! You can't give up!! You can do this!!" Ok, Ok ... one more go and if it doesn't work I GIVE UP!! Make a long story short ... I changed a few things made my batter, pipped and rested them and in the oven they went. I wasn't holding much hope but to my absolute amazement when I opened my oven doors ..... There they were looking as perfect as ever!! I couldn't believe my eyes!! Did I just do that? I'm definitely feeling a lot better about my macarons now but I wouldn't say that I've perfected them just yet!! More experimenting next week ... So next macaron post I'll let you know what I've learnt.

Introducing Bella Macarons : What do you lovelies think?