Laduree eat your heart out!

We lived in Paris for a year about ten years ago. I used to love the Grands Magasins (big very posh department stores) and could spend hours in the food court at the top of Galeries Lafayette, often in search of a little treat or two.
I used to enjoy looking at the patisserie displays and used to be quite shocked by some of the prices. WHile utterly beautiful, the cost of these little multi-coloured macarons was unbelievable!

Why did NOONE the WHOLE time I was there tell me how damn GOOD they are!!! What a missed opportunity! Yes I've since tried them and they are amazing. And like all things French, if they taste good here they will be a bazillion times better eaten in Paris.

Anyway enough of the backstory.

My kids love baking and after just under nine years of motherhood I have finally managed to create systems that allow us to do this WITHOUT:

1) hygiene issues that would render the food inedible
2) lack of process that leads to baking failures OR
3) driving me to the point of insanity

(it was a massive blow to my vision of the joys of motherhood when I first tried baking with kids, I seem to remember it involved much tears and inhaled mustard powder (cheese scones))

Now I am finding my stride and we are ready to tackle increasingly complex recipes. Enter THE MACARON

I had been meaning to try this recipe by Claire of Claireabelle Makes for ages, we had time on our hands today and after making a carbonara for tea yesterday I had three egg whites sat in the fridge so it seemed as good a time as any.

We stuck to the recipe pretty closely (skipped the real vanilla though, not feeling that posh today) and the instructions to the letter.

Didn't we do well?

These were rather quickly consumed. Luckily we made two platefuls!

Grand plans are afoot to try some different flavours now. I am thinking of lemon or orange with chocolate cream. The most fab one I ever had was green tea flavoured but no idea how to recreate.

Any ideas for flavour combinations?