Baking French Christmas Macarons takes time, patience, and attention to detail. All of that is worth it when you take the first bite of your perfect chewy yet lightly crunchy macarons that you made yourself. Read through the recipe here a few times, and follow each step exactly in order to get the best results. I have another amazing macaron recipe! These Chocolate Macarons are filled with Nutella buttercream.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Key Ingredients
Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Almond Flour: For making the perfect macarons, it is important that you use FINE almond flour, and that you sift it very well after measuring. Measure your flour and sugars by weight rather than volume for the best results.Powdered Sugar: This finely milled sugar is sifted in with the almond flour and keeps our macarons nice and light. Egg Whites: You’ll need the whites only from 3 large eggs. Allow your egg whites to come to room temperature before mixing.Cream of Tartar: This helps to stabilize the egg mixture.White Sugar: Yes, there are two types of sugar in this macarons recipe. Both are used differently, and both are important.Peppermint Extract and Red Gel Food Coloring: These items take our macarons from plain and typical to tasty and festive! You can leave the food coloring out if you prefer. Peppermint Chocolate Buttercream Filling: You can’t have a macaron without a creamy and delicious filling! Butter, sugar, cocoa powder, and more peppermint extract create the most decadent Christmas macaron filling ever. Crushed Candy Canes: Crunchy bits of peppermint candy surround the edges of these peppermint macarons.
Macaron Preparation Tips
Often I share recipe tips after I explain the recipe, but for macarons, there are some things you’ll want to know upfront and ahead of time.
How to Make Peppermint Macarons
Stay with me here! There are a lot of steps, and each is important to achieving macaron success. Follow along and your Christmas macarons will be amazing. Are you still with me? That was a lot! But you did it. Next, we will make a delicious chocolate peppermint buttercream macaron filling. Then we will sandwich our macarons to finish them.
Peppermint Chocolate Buttercream Macaron Filling
More Macaron Recipe Tips
Use Gel Food Coloring: Liquid food coloring is not ideal for macarons, as any extra liquid can affect how the eggs whip up. Be Sure to Let them Rest: The step of letting the piped macarons rest before baking them is very important. This allows the tops to dry, which will make them smooth after baking. I usually set mine under my oven hood to help with drying them out. Check the oven temperature: You can’t always trust that your oven is the temperature it says it is. For me, my oven often takes much longer than the preheating time to actually get up to temp. An oven thermometer will take all the guesswork out of that. Don’t Open the Oven: This is true of any type of meringue. Opening the oven can cause forceful airflow and a change in temperature that can interrupt and mess up everything! You can start checking by gently opening the oven after 15 minutes.
Macaron Cookie Troubleshooting
Have a problem with your macarons? No worries, you can learn what happened and do it differently next time!
Hollow shells – egg whites are over whipped, or batter is overmixed.Deflated shells – didn’t use kitchen scales, or the oven door was opened too early.Soft collapsing shells – oven temperature is too low, or not baked for long enough.Uneven or lumpy shell tops – ingredients not sifted well, too many coarse bits in the almond flour.Shells with no feet – the batter was too wet, or shells didn’t have enough time to set and dry out before baking.Shells are too high – oven temperature is too high.Brown shells – oven temperature is too high, or macarons are too close to the heat source.Pointed shells – the batter is not mixed properly.Shells are not round – the piping technique is not correct. Hold a sturdy piping bag vertically and squeeze out the right amount without moving your hand.Cracked macarons – too much air in the batter caused by overwhipping the egg whites, or the tray wasn’t tapped before drying the piped batter to remove any extra air bubbles.
Helpful Macaron Tools
Stand Mixer – Using a stand mixer frees your hands so you can multitask!Silicone Macaron Mat – Instead of parchment paper, this reusable non-stick mat helps you to get consistently sized and shaped cookies. Digital Food Scale – It’s important to measure the ingredients for macarons by weight. Oven Thermometer – You might be surprised at how inaccurate your oven is!
More Delicious Christmas Desserts!
Eggnog Fudge is super creamy with the perfect amount of holiday spice. While you’re being a pro in the kitchen, why not whip up a funfetti-style Christmas Layer Cake too? Go classic with traditional cookies like Chocolate Crinkles or Snickerdoodles.
I’m so excited to hear about how your Christmas Chocolate Peppermint Macarons turned out! Remember, if they aren’t perfect, it’s totally fine. Just try again another time. With practice, anyone can be a professional macaron maker. © Little Sunny Kitchen
