The maison · our method
Nine steps, two days, one macaron.
A real French macaron is not a cookie. It is a technique — a specific sequence of folds, rests and temperatures that gives the shell its matte top, its feathered pied, and the tender crackle of the first bite. Here is how we make every batch at La Macaronerie, step by step.
Step 1 · The meringue
Egg whites, aged forty-eight hours in the refrigerator so they lose a little water and whip higher, are brought to room temperature. Caster sugar is added in a slow stream once the whites have doubled in volume. The meringue is whipped until it holds a firm, glossy peak that stands up on the whisk without curling.
This is the structure of the macaron. Everything that follows depends on it.
Step 2 · The dry mix
French almond flour (poudre d'amandes) and icing sugar are weighed in equal parts — the tant pour tant — and sifted together three times. Three. Not two.
Any lump, any oversized almond fragment, any coarse grain of sugar will show on the finished shell as a bump or a crack. The three sifts are what gives the macaron its surface, smooth as porcelain.
Step 3 · The fold
The dry mix is folded into the meringue with a flexible spatula, in long, deliberate strokes from the bottom of the bowl, around the sides, and down through the centre. The movement is calm, never aggressive — the goal is to deflate just enough of the meringue so the batter is smooth and flowing, but not so much that it collapses.
The test is visual: the batter should fall from the spatula in a continuous ribbon that re-absorbs into the surface within about ten seconds. Patissiers call this le ruban, the ribbon. Too thick and the shells will crack; too thin and they will spread flat with no pied.
This is the step that takes years to feel right. There is no timer for it.
Step 4 · Piping
The batter goes into a piping bag fitted with a plain round tip, and is piped onto parchment-lined trays as discs of about four centimetres across. Each disc must be the same size as the next — because they will be sandwiched into pairs later. Thirty-six discs per tray, pairs of eighteen, means eighteen filled macarons.
The trays are then rapped sharply against the counter two or three times, to release any air bubbles trapped inside the batter. A hidden bubble becomes a crack during baking.
Step 5 · The crust
The piped shells rest at room temperature, uncovered, for thirty to forty-five minutes. This is le croûtage — the formation of a thin, dry skin on the top of each shell.
You test it with the tip of a finger: when you can touch the shell without any batter clinging to your finger, the crust is set. It is this skin that will trap the steam during baking and force the macaron to rise upward through the only opening left — the base. That is where the pied is born.
Step 6 · The bake
The shells go into a convection oven at a low, steady temperature. During the first few minutes, nothing visible happens. Then, in a window of about forty seconds, the base of each shell begins to lift from the parchment, revealing a frilled, feathered edge — le pied, literally «the foot».
The pied is the signature of a real French macaron. No pied, no macaron. Its height, its evenness and its texture tell a trained eye everything about the batter, the croûtage and the oven.
The shells come out when they lift cleanly from the parchment without sticking.
Step 7 · The filling
While the shells cool, the ganache is made — chocolate or caramel or fruit, warm cream or butter, folded together once both are the same temperature. The emulsion is critical: if the fat separates from the water, the ganache will split and the macaron will weep.
Once mixed, the ganache rests overnight. During those twelve hours, the cocoa butter (or the sugar crystals, in the caramel) finds its stable form, and the texture turns from liquid to satiny, somewhere between a cream and a soft butter.
You can read more about each one on our Pantry page.
Step 8 · Assembly
Each shell is paired with its match from the same tray. A disc of ganache is piped onto the flat side of one shell, the second shell is pressed on top with a slight twist — the twist spreads the ganache evenly to the edge, so the finished macaron shows a clean band of filling.
Thirty-six shells per batch means eighteen macarons. Each one assembled by hand, by the same person.
Step 9 · The wait
A filled macaron is not ready to eat. It needs twenty-four hours in the cold — the first day of its five-day life.
During those twenty-four hours, the moisture from the ganache migrates into the shell. The crackle softens into a tender crumb. The ganache finds the shell. Two separate elements become one taste. This step is non-negotiable: a macaron eaten the day it was piped is a cookie with cream in it. A macaron eaten after twenty-four hours of maturation is a macaron.
From that moment, the ideal eating window is four days.
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