Homemade Macarons

I've said many times before, I'm not a baker. I enjoy cooking, but never really liked to bake. Recently, however, I'm beginning to like it more and more. Over the past couple years, I've baked pies, flognardes, galettes, cookies, to name a few. And today, gave in to my current obsession and tried my first attempt at the macaron. About 2/3 were filled with chocolate butter cream, and 1/3 with a milk chocolate orange ganache. I'm not sure if I just lucked out (macarons are supposedly a "notoriously difficult recipe" and are easy to ruin), but both turned out to be really delicious. Yea!

Claudia Fleming's Macarons

2¼ cups powdered sugar
2 cups almond flour
2 tablespoon sugar
5 egg whites, room temperature

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F. Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl.
   
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off (which I did).
   
5. Pipe one-inch-sized mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners or parchment paper.
6. Bake the macaron for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.