[ENG] Macaron Failed. But It's Lemon!

I've been wanting to make macarons since last year, but there's something about it that makes me kinda  "scared" so that i've been postponing it for so long. I was excited but really nervous at the same time, because from what i read there are dozen things that could go wrong when making macarons. And even the only sad thing when i failed is, i can't eat proper macarons, it's major lol 

I decided to make the lemon one, even if i never had lemon macaron before, i really love lemon in my dessert, like lemon bars, lemon meringue pie, i already can i imagine how good it will turn out. 

First, i made the lemon curd for the filling. Well, it's actually a lemon pie filling recipe because most of lemon curd recipes use whole eggs instead of just yolks. I wanted to use only yolks since i will use the whites for the macarons. So, i decided on the recipe that only use yolks, and i've actually made before, so i know that it's a good one.

Original recipe from Allrecipes - Grandma's Lemon Meringue Pie
Ingredients:

90g sugar
1 tbsp all purpose flour
1 1/2 tbsp corn starch
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup water
1 lemon
1 tbsp butter
2 egg yolk

1. In a saucepan, whisk together sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt.

2. Stir in the water, lemon juice and lemon zest. (i didn't use lemon zest since my lemon wasn't really fresh)

3. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring frequently until it comes to a boil. Lower down the heat and stir in the butter.

4. Gradually whisk in 1/4 cup of the hot sugar mixture to the egg yolk, then whisk the egg yolk mixture back to the sugar mixture. Bring to a boil & continue to cook until thick.

5. Transfer it to a container and let it cool before putting the lid and keep in the fridge.

The lemon curd/filling tasted amazing. It's tart, sweet and smooth, i can just eat it as it is. It was so good and addictive.

For the egg whites, i just put a paper towel on top and kept it in the fridge overnight.

The next day...
I made the macarons.

Original recipe from Euginie Kitchen - Easy Macaron Recipe Without Mixer
Ingredients (for 15 pair/30 macaron shells):

60 g egg whites
30 g castor sugar (granulated sugar will also work, i used 25 g)
50 g almond powder
90 g confectioner/powdered sugar
a pinch of salt
yellow food coloring (optional, i used liquid food coloring)

Since the almond powder that i buyed wasn't really smooth & high quality, i decided to sift it twice.

Then i weighed the almond powder and powdered sugar, and sift them all together with the salt.

I whisked the egg whites until it gets foamy.

Then i gradually added the sugar in while whisking the egg whites until soft peak.

Then i added one drop of yellow food coloring.

But actually it took about 10 drops of the coloring to get this color...

I folded in the almond-powdered sugar mixture carefully

but even before i could fold all the sugar-almond powder mixture in, it already turned out too wet and runny 

I put the macaronage in a triangle piping bag with a round tip. Then i piped it to a baking pan lined with baking paper. 

quite messy ~.~

I tapped the pan twice to get rid of the air bubbles and let it sit to dry the surface of the macarons. But even after one and half hour the surface still hadn't dried yet, but because i was in a rush i decided to just bake them. 

I baked them on 150 C for 15 minutes, but when i tried to remove it from the paper, it sticked to the paper and still really wet (only the surface dried up). So i bake them again, and after about 1 hour of baking they finally dried up and i could kinda remove them from the paper, some of them still stick though.

The macarons still taste like macaron, which is awesome. I did had  few shells that i actually could sandwich the filling with, but it's just too ugly for the shot -.- I really like the taste though, the tart lemon filling really compliments the sweet almondy shells, it's just as good as i imagine it will be. I definitely will try to make this again. 

I don't know what exactly went wrong, but from what i read, i guess it's related to this things...
1. The almond powder is kinda "wet", maybe i should try to sun-dry it. 

2. I used way too much liquid food coloring, some of the recipes i read only use about 1-2 drop, but i had to added 10 drops of the coloring. Maybe i should try using powder/gel food coloring.

3. The weather was too humid to make macarons, it started raining right after i finished piping and let the macaron rest.

If you have experiences in making macarons, please help me with this! >_<