Macaroons of varying success

Everyone loves a Macaroon. They are now officially cooler than cupcakes, although possibly slightly less cool than pop cakes and perhaps on a zeitgeist par with whoopie pies. But here's the thing, it turns out not everyone can make them like La Duree. Here is an attempt with some top tips gathered from many other blogs, whose addresses I have shamefully lost but will credit when/if I re-find them. Picture: cup of English Breakfast with lemon curd macaroon.
ingredients:
175g icing sugar
125g ground almonds - in an ideal world, made from blanched almonds that you have blitzed yourself
3 egg whites, ideally at room temperature and slightly older rather than fresh
75g caster sugar food colouring

oven: 140 (no fan), 150 (fan) what to do:
1. Make sure that you have baking paper, or ideally one of those teflon sheets that were invented by NASA so that astronauts could overcome all their sticking/bakery issues. It is wise to do this BEFORE you start cooking, as otherwise you might do an emergency dash to find that the three local shops don't actually stock it, then have to cycle to Sainsburys looking like someone just tipped a bag of icing sugar onto your head. Just a thought.
2. Blitz the icing sugar and ground almonds together in a food processor. Set aside.
3. In a big, clean bowl, whisk up the egg whites with a pinch of salt and pinch of cream of tartar, until they stand up on their own in any shape that you demand of them, except perhaps the Sagrada Familia. At this point whisk in the sugar, the egg whites will become glossy. At this point you can mix some food colouring in or divide the whites to colour them differently.
4. Mix half the almond/sugar mixture into the whites, then fold in the last of the mixture. At risk of pointing out the obvious, if you have halved the egg whites then halve the almond mix.
5. Put the mixture into a piping bag. You can use a freezer bag and cut a hole in the corner when you are ready to pipe it out. It is at this point you will realise that eggy sugary almonds have the same texture as superglue mixed with sand, so if you are a big cack-handed you might want to put the bag into a bowl to stand it up with an open aperture. It will go everywhere and does not come out of your clothes.
6. pipe into small 'plops' (the technical term), say the size of a 50p piece if you live in the UK, so about 3cm across. leave enough space between the plops. mine looked like this when piped, basically really badly spaced.
7. Leave for a few moments so that they form a slight skin, this should make them smoother on top. put them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, watch them carefully through the oven door, trying not to fall asleep as you do it (watching pain dry not dissimilar).
8. take them out! et voila!

or this is what they look like if you are less adept (with food colouring too)



Filling
Choose any filling you like, the filling is basically where the flavouring comes from. Traditionally, buttercream (softened butter mixed with icing sugar), or you could use fresh cream if serving immediately, or jam, lemon curd, hell how about marmite or melted marshmallows, whatever takes your fancy. Here are some ideas;

• mashed banana (mix with lemon juice)
• tea-infused buttercream
• lemon rind mixed with buttercream
• rhubarb jam
• rosewater buttercream

etc etc please add your favourite flavour in the comments (is there anyone out there yet?!)