Perfect macarons...

I was sitting at home on July 14th and suddenly realised it was Bastille Day.  Inspiration struck and I decided it was time to attempt to make those wonderful little french delicacies - the Macaron, and in particular my all time favorite, Fleur de sel caramel macarons.  Although I immediately thought would these actually work, or would my shells be cracked or not have 'feet'; or would this be the time when the 'macaron gods' would smile on me and I'd actually get perfect macarons? 

Over the past few years, I've made a few batches and while in the most part they tasted ok, I hadn't been unable to replicate the same flat, shiny smooth shells we made in the macaron class I did with Cook'n with Class in Paris back in October 2010.  Hell, I'd even tried Donna Hay's packet mix, but they didn't really work that well either.  See the results here.

So here it is on a Saturday afternoon/evening attempting once again to make the "perfect" Macaron.  For this batch I used a recipe I found online at JoTheTartQueen.  Not sure what made the difference, but this was the first time I dried the almond meal in the oven and then blitzed it in the food processor along with the icing sugar.  My eggs weren't aged, so I zapped them in the microwave for about 8 seconds, before baking the shells on double trays.

And as for the results - I've got to say these were my most successful batch to date... 

** Fleur de Sel" - hand-harvested sea salt collected by workers who scrape only the top layer of salt before it sinks to the bottom of large salt pans. Traditional French fleur de sel is collected off the coast of Brittany.