Making Macaron

I swear, these are my favorite cookies. And no, I didn't start liking them after the Parisian crowd (then Japan, then Taiwan...) fell into a frenzy over these tiny little petit fours. I really cannot recall when I had them for the first time. But I just love the outrageous colors and the lovely textures -- crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The high sugar content and egg whites make the inside not only chewy but also sticky. It is also interesting that almond meal/flour (basically ground up almonds) is used, so there are bits and pieces of chewable almond particles. Again, Y had the most perfect notes and recipe from Le Cordon Bleu. We made pistachio, lemon, chocolate, and raspberry. There is just one master recipe of the dough (beat up egg white + powdered sugar + almond flour). Then it can be divided into portions to be mixed with flavoring and coloring:

Type: what's in the dough what's in the filling
Pistachio: green coloring only pistachio paste+butter
Lemon: yellow coloring+lemon zest lemon zest+lemon juice+strained apricot jam
Chocolate: cocoa powder+red coloring chocolate ganache
Raspberry: red coloring raspberry jam

I think the most successful one is the lemon. The pistachio ones are a very close second. The pistachio paste is SO GOOD! It tastes somewhat like almond paste, but a lot smoother and just heavenly (lost for words...). I only rank it second to the lemon ones because the cookie part had just the coloring, while the lemon ones contains the zest, which has a very nice zing. The raspberry and chocolate ones are distant third and fourth. The recipe said that we're supposed to let the piped out dough rest for 15 minutes to an hour, but we were in a hurry to bake the chocolate ones. I think that is why they cracked. But it also may have something to do with the extra dry ingredient (cocoa powder). In any case, the chocolate cookie part does not have the right texture -- too much cripy part and not enough chewy part. The raspberry one is not bad, but all it takes is some decent raspberry jam.

Now I am dreaming about other possibilities...passion fruit, mango, coconut, grapefruit, blood orange, osmanthus flower, jasmine+green tea, sesame, rose, elderflower...