Pierre Hermé's recipe. The French king of macarons.

He makes it with a Suisse meringue. I had to change the oven temp and timings because he has professional ovens and I am but a mortal home cook with a temperamental creature in lieu of an oven... I use a big metal plate (pizza stone made of steel) on the lowest rack of my oven, as a heat stabilizer to keep everything more consistent temperature wise. Then bake the macarons on the middle rack at 150C for 18 min (open de door for 3 sec at 6 min mark to evacuate any steam build up, by then the foot should have formed).

Now be warned, I failed many times before getting my technique just right for my home kitchen. My first batch was... Not as impressive.

It took me about 14 tries before I thought I understood things. Then I proceeded to fail a couple more times in between good batches. It's a long learning curve, but I'm stubborn.

First time: