No Rest French Macaron Shells

My quest to start making macarons started about 1.5 years ago when I joined the baking community on instagram to share my cakes. I noticed people talking about the prickly macaron and I wanted to try myself. I watched many many YouTube videos before trying. My first macarons were chocolate and had wrinkly tops, shortly after that I made a red batch with bonkers feet that I thought were pretty good (they weren’t). My point is, if you’ve been scared to try, you just have to begin and learn from each batch.

The macron bakers I’ve learned from

Along the way I picked up tips and tricks from macaron makers, some friends, some I just came across on YouTube or instagram and I owe them all so much thanks for helping me to develop as a macaron maker.

Samantha from WebsterWhisks has the first recipe that ever worked for me consistently, no matter what the weather was doing here in Florida! I highly recommend her recipe, especially if you’re struggling to find consistent results. She has a link to her ebook on her instagram page.

Pies and Tacos usually favors the Swiss method, but she does them all. Watch some of her YouTube videos and devour her website and you will learn so much about macarons. She is incredibly knowledgeable about anything macaron related.

If you’ve ever made macarons you know that sometimes it requires some encouragement. So thank you to my friends who looked at countless macaron gut pictures and encouraged me. Megan from The White Whisk, Diana from Find Your Cake Inspiration , and Kala from Almonds and Apricots and everyone who looked at my instagram stories and took the time to encourage me!

Macarons can come in different shapes and sizes, they’re made by different methods. In my experience of making them I think a no rest recipe is less finicky because there is less moisture in the mixture, and leaves less room for insanely variable results.

Another thing I read when I first started to try making macarons was, do not share your babies with anyone who is going to judge them! I find that to be great advice because they are a labor of love and should be received with love.

I hope this recipe works for you, or is a good starting point for you to gain confidence to forge ahead to make your perfect macaron. I hope this recipe finds and blesses people who are working a side hustle and are trying to pay their bills. Or anyone who just wants to learn a new skill!

Questions and troubleshooting

I’m happy to try to answer any questions you have (within reason), I am typically easy to reach on my instagram and TikTok pages. If you have no idea how to do the macaronage stage (mixing the dry into the meringue) I suggest watching a few YouTube videos to see how different people do it!

My favorite resource for figuring out what is wrong with my macarons is Pies and Tacos troubleshooting guide. I can not tell you how many times I’ve looked it up. It’s very thorough with pictures. If you have problems, check her guide and make 1 adjustment at a time. A small adjustment can make a huge difference!

It’s best when getting started to get all of your tools out before you start, I learned this from Pies and Tacos even before she moved to my little town and became my best friend, true story. Getting all set up before starting helps decrease overwhelm during the process, don’t ask how I know. 🙂 Set your mixer up, set your baking pans out with mats, get your bag and nozzle ready, pull out your kitchen scale, have your sifter ready, and get all your ingredients. Most importantly, get that oven preheating because it needs to be at a nice stable temp.

Making the Meringue

Start by weighing out your granulated sugar and egg white powder (I’ve never seen this in the grocery store, I order it on amazon in the states). You can do this in the bowl you plan to sift your almond flour and confectioners sugar in.

Make sure to mix those together, if you don’t the egg white powder may clump when it gets mixed in the egg whites.

Weigh your egg whites out. I prefer to use an additional bowl for this in the off change an egg breaks and yolk comes along. If there is yolk in your mixture it can ruin your meringue. I break the egg in a separate bowl, if it looks good then I add it to my mixer bowl that is on the kitchen scale. Each egg white is usually around 30 g. We want 120 g. I usually do 3 eggs because a lot of times the eggs each weigh a little more than 30 g, then I use carton egg whites to bring it up to 120 g. If you do this, make sure your egg white carton lists only egg whites in the ingredients list. Liquid egg whites are a thinner consistency and may take longer to whip.

Add the sugar mixture to the egg whites. Start your mixer on the lowest setting and give it about 10 seconds, you’re going to do about 10 seconds at each setting until you hit 6 or medium high and then you will let it go until it’s ready. I timed mine once and it took about 6 minutes but the amount of time it takes can vary for many reasons.

While your meringue is working you can weigh out the almond flour and confectioners sugar to the same bowl. Do not force the almond flour though, discard any that doesn’t make it though. Blue Diamond brand is very fine and I’ve been told Kirkland brand is good as well. Combine the sugar and almond flour.

The meringue is ready when it’s at stiff peaks, we do not go past the peaks stage to the shaving cream phase. When you detach your whisk and circle it around in the meringue you will feel some resistance, when you pull it up from that circle it will pull and make a peak, when you flip that whisk straight up, the peak will curl over.

Macaronage

When the meringue is ready, remove the bowl from the mixer and add all of the dry ingredients in. I like to add my color at this stage bc I feel like it turns out more vibrant verses when I add it to my meringue.

Start moving the dry ingredients around to incorporate it some. Don’t worry about the meringue, it will be fine. Once it’s a little more manageable, I like to start spreading it on the sides of the bowl, then take my spatula to collect it all back to the bottom center by taking the side of the spatula with pressure around the bowl and down, when my spatula is at the bottom center, I scoop upwards to see how well the batter is flowing. I repeat this process until the batter is ready.

In the beginning stages, when the batter is spread on the side of the bowl, you can run your spatula back and forth over the batter to work out some air. Each time I spread my batter on the side of the bowl, I note the amount of (popped) air pockets that seem to be present.

The air pockets will decrease as you go. The batter is ready when the air pockets are reduced to few (some are ok we don’t want it totally deflated) and when the batter is able to flow off the spatula after a circle and scoop mentioned above.

This batter is very thick and will not become runny like a traditional rest recipe. It will not flow like lava, so do not over macaronage tying to get it like a traditional macaron.

Piping the shells

Bag the batter into either 1 large piping bag, or 2 medium with a nozzle of your choice. Ideally there would be a size between the wilton 12 and 2A. 12 is a little small for how thick this batter is, it takes some strength to pipe it, and the 2A is a little large and harder to pipe a flat top. I piped these with the 2A. I will likely be using the 12 from now on or even go back to just snipping the bag. Place your silicone mat on your upside down aluminum tray. Pipe one tray at a time. I usually start piping my second tray when the first has about 6 minutes left in the oven.

Begin piping by placing your bag straight up and down, a 90 degree angle from the pan. To end piping, keeping your nozzle at about the same angle, you’ll want to make a quick swirl. If you notice that you’ve made a nipple or unsmooth section, after piping a few, set you bag down and work them smooth using a toothpick, don’t wait until you’ve piped the whole tray because the tops do dry out a bit and it is much harder to fix later. My mats have 3 circle outlines, I like to pipe just past the second, almost to the 3rd circle. You can manipulate how tall or flat the shells are to an extent with how you pipe it, you will get a feel for that as you go.

Once they’re all piped you can tap the bottom of the tray or drop it on the counter a few times to work air out and smooth those little holes over with a toothpick. If all the steps above were just right there will be very few that you need to fix.

Baking

Check your oven temp, if it’s ready you can place them in the oven. I plan to bake mine around 305 for 15 minutes. I check my oven temp throughout. It usually fluctuates between 295-310 throughout and it takes 14-15 minutes in my oven. If this temp doesn’t work for you and you’ve baked macarons at another temp in the past I recommend trying that temp and adjusting cook time.

Watch them inside the oven, around half way though they start to puff up and get feet, then towards the end the feet will start to shorten. I like to check for doneness a few minutes before my timer so that they don’t over bake (every tray can be slightly different). I check with the wiggle test. Carefully open the oven, gently tap the side of the top part of the shell, if it moves easily it needs more time. I consider my tray done perfect if a shell on the outside of the tray does not wiggle at all, but a shell on the inside has a tiny shift when touched.

When they are done remove them and set them on a cooling rack for a few minutes. Then carefully remove the pan leaving them to cool completely on the silicone mat, on the rack.

Once they are totally cool, you can remove them. They should release very easily. Especially the outside of the mat. If the ones on the inside have a slight stick, I find it best to bend the silicone mat to help it peel away. If they are sticking to the mat, they are undercooked and you should increase your cook time next time.

Fill them and let them mature in an airtight container in the fridge. I sometimes have a small gap that fills in once they have matured in the fridge by absorbing some liquid from the filling. A small gap is not the same thing as a hollow and is totally acceptable in a macaron.

You can do it! They’re just cookies! Now go get to work!

If you try this recipe I would love to see it! Message me on social media, sometimes I don’t get notified of a tag!

You may also like my Chocolate No Rest French Macaron Shells.