Before my macarons had feet!

I've had my fair share of failures at making macarons.... I guess. Anyways, I just posting this to share what my experieces and attempts were like. My succession can be seen here. I currently using the French Meringue method.

First attmpt!

Very runny mixture

Log shaped and pancake like macarons. They were very sticky and hard to pull off the baking paper. By the way, I using non-greasy baking paper, not non-stick. 

It went horribly and was sort of a waste since I used a 3 egg based recipe. It seems that I over mixed the macaron mixture during the macaronage stage. The macaronage is when you cobine the TNT (tante pour tante) (almond flour/meal and icing sugar) with the stiffened egg whites.
Atleast I managed to get 'feet', heh heh heh.
You can't really buy powdered food colouring in Australia unless its on the internet.

Second and third attempt were similar results, only that the third had a better colour.

Piped mixture. I was happy that they held their form unlike the first attempt.

Out of the oven and set aside to cool. I set the oven temperature a bit to high.

Result of second attempt.

Result of third attempt.



Both batches were 'footless'. Oh yes, I started using this recipe I found here. It only calls for one egg so I don't waste very much if I were to fail. The reason to my macarons being footless was because they were over dried (the macarons were stll tacky and wet to touch after 30 min so I let them dry another 30min) and the mixture was under mixed (so the mixture was thick). They tasted pretty good though.

Forth, fifth and sixth attempt, they just began going downhill.

Piped batter. This time I used blue food (liquid) colouring, but only one drop. The reason why macaron recipes call for paste or power food colouring is to reduce moisture in the macaron mixture. I use a gel based one and is really strong so I only need to dip a toothpick in it and mix it into the egg white.

My macarons had no feet and began to collapse in. They only callapse is the surface isn't dry enough to touch. This batch was my fifth. They tasted goo still.

Just like my second and third attempt but only this time I may have overmixed the macaronage a bit. I thought it might have been the egg whites being too stiff or the recipe itself and was at a point of giving up. The macarons also, after comming out of the over, refused to come off the baking paper (I was using non-greasy, not non-stick). I also asked Macaron Fetish for advice.
The answer was definately related to the macronage and also the weather. I was at giving up point when my sixth attempt went down the bin (only because I used a different oven and a fan forced one at that).

Seventh attempt.

I made this with a friend and I used a 3 egg recipe only because I was thinking that the one egg based recipe was a fault still. No pics but the results were somewhat hillarious but the macarons still failed.

They came out extra brown and were pretty crispy. Though they did somehow form feet but instead of on the sides, they came out through the middle-top part of the macaron, like a germinating or sprouting bean.
They were hard to pull off the baking paper (non-greasy) too so half the batch was considered 'chew and spit'. They were still edible but you had to spit the paper out.

We still gilled them with ganache, which was made of melted chocolate and butter but after sandwiching them, the ganache hardened and turned back to hard choclate. So the result of our macarons were pretty crispy and hard.

I had fun with this attempt and it somewhat encouraged me to continue making them but if my next attempts were to still fail, I told myself to go take a macaron making class or coarse.

Yes, thats alot to read but...Thanks for reading. Best of luck to beginners too. Don't give up!!!