Lavender and Earl Grey Macarons

• OPTIONAL: Make the lavender sugar ahead of time for the macaron shells. Place the granulated sugar and lavender leaves in a small bowl, and muddle together for a few minutes to express the oils from the leaves, and then cover and let sit overnight to let the sugar absorb those oils. Once ready, pass the sugar through a sieve to remove the bits of lavender leaves.

Macarons

• Sift the almond flour and the powdered sugar together into a medium bowl, and then whisk to thoroughly combine, and set aside.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk the egg whites on medium-medium/high speed until they are foamy, then add the cream of tartar. On medium high speed, gradually add the granulated sugar (or lavender sugar, if you made it), pausing if necessary to scrape down the sides, it can be easy for sugar to get stuck to the side of the bowl and not get whisked. Once all the sugar has been added, turn the mixer up to full speed and whisk until it's forming soft peaks.
• Add 3-4 drops of violet food coloring, or until your desired yellow color is reached. Be careful though, eventually it won't get any more yellow and the added liquid from the food coloring can mess up the macarons! I think 3-4 good drops is enough, and gives a nice pale yellow color. Continue to whisk until stiff peaks.
• Gently add half the dry ingredients to the egg whites and fold in by hand with a spatula. Repeat with the second half. With each addition, it will start out very dry and sticky, but keep folding and it will incorporate. Once all the ingredients are added, continue to fold until you can form an unbroken figure 8 with the batter as it drips off the spatula (this is a classic macaron batter test). Once you reach this point, stop mixing, or else you risk over mixing.
• Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet ( recommend the amazon basics ones that have the macaron template printed right on them). If using parchment paper, you can print out macaron templates to place underneath to making piping easier. Don't worry about removing the templates, as macarons don't bake at a high enough temperature to burn paper (thanks Ray Bradbury!)
• Add the batter to a piping bag with a large round tip (like a Wilton 1A). Carefully pipe 1 inch rounds onto your prepared baking sheet. This recipe makes 30 filled macarons, which is 60 halves, so you will need 2 prepared baking sheets if making the full recipe. Once piped, lift the baking sheet off the counter by a couple of inches and drop down onto the counter a couple of times to help air rise to the surface, and then carefully with a tooth pick pop any bubbles you can see in the macarons.
• Let the macarons sit at room temp for 30-40 minutes, or until they've formed a skin and you can touch them and they feel dry. While they are resting, preheat the oven to 300°F. Before baking, if desired, carefully garnish the tops with lavender leaves. Once ready to bake, bake the macarons for 13-15 minutes. To test if they're done, gently touch the top of one and it shouldn't move independently from their feet when touched (i.e. no jiggle). Be careful not to overbake, as burning will show quite easily on this pale colored macaron.
• Remove from the oven and let cool completely to room temp before removing from the baking sheet. Once cooled, carefully peel off the parchment or silicone, and match them up as best you can (there will always be some minor size differences) and flip over to prepare for filling. Pipe a small bit of buttercream into the center of half of the macarons, and then sandwich them together.
• Macarons are actually NOT best fresh, so I recommend placing them in some airtight container and back into the fridge for 12-14 hours, letting the filling sort of infuse with the macaron. The patience is worth it I promise! Not that a few going missing right after assembly isn't the end of the world. They'll keep for a few days in the fridge, if they last that long!

  Enjoy!

Lavender Earl Grey Buttercream

• In the bowl of stand mixer, add all the buttercream ingredients and beat together on medium and then medium-high speed (if you start to fast you will fling powdered sugar everywhere). Beat until smooth. From here, adjust the powdered sugar and milk amounts as necessary to fix the consistency if desired. You want a relatively stiff buttercream, as it will need to hold together the two halves of the macaron.