Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. For best accuracy, trace 1-inch circles onto the paper. Flip it over so the side that was drawn on is on the bottom and will not touch the food side.

In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the almond flour and powdered sugar, set aside.

In a small or medium sized bowl, combine the egg whites and granulated sugar. Place over a pot of boiling water to form a double boiler. Whisk the mixture until the sugar completely dissolves and the mixture is warm to the touch and frothy. This will take 4-6 minutes.

Take off the heat and using a hand mixer, whip the egg whites until you achieve stiff peaks. This will take 4-10 minutes.

Once you have stiff peaks, pour in the sifted almond flour and powdered sugar mixture.

Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients into the meringue in a “U” shaped motion. Add food coloring at this step if you want colored macaron shells. Continue folding until the batter becomes “drippy” and you can consecutively form a figure “8” in the batter. Youtube tutorials are very helpful for determining when your batter is just mixed enough, and when it is overmixed.

Once the batter is totally mixed, fill a piping bag with the batter. The piping bag should have a ¼-inch circle tip, or something around there.

Pipe macaron circles onto the parchment paper on the baking sheet. If you drew circles on it, follow the outline. If you did not, try your best to make them the same size.

Once all of the macarons are piped, bang the tray on the table top hard. You want to make sure all of the air bubbles are out of the macaron shells, so you want to bang them at least 10 times to make sure there are no hidden bubbles.

Once you have hit the air bubbles out of the batter, the tops should be fairly flat. Carefully pat down any points that might have resulted from piping them, but they will probably resolve themselves in the drying stage anyways.

Next, preheat the oven to 310°F and allow the shells to dry for 20-40 minutes until the tops are not sticky when touched. While the shells are drying, you can make your curd and buttercream.

After the shells have dried, bake the shells in the preheated oven. Rotate them after 5 minutes, of baking, and allow them to bake for a total of 16-20 minutes depending on your oven.

Once the macarons are baked, take them out of the oven and allow them to cool before filling.