Black & White Russian Macarons

I know, I know, I know! I am sooooooo late to the macaron party… My motto is, however, if you must be tardy – then at least be well-dressed. Black & white is always appropriate, for any occasion.
And our occasion today is the “Ebony and Ivory” Improv Cooking Challenge.

(Thanks to Kristen, we’ve had this song playing in our heads all month! )
I really wanted to try gluten-free chocolate cream-filled cookies; but because I made these a few months ago, I figured I should probably move in a different direction.I’d been studying up on macarons for a couple years. My Pinterest boards are loaded with soooooo much inspiration. The sites I used for most of my ideas are Mardi’s & BraveTart. Because they are so knowledgeable & helpful, I’m not going to waste space here telling you how to make macarons. (Also because I’ve made macarons once…) I will tell you my mistakes, though.
First, here is my recipe:

for the macarons:
	115 g.	ground almonds
	230 g.	powdered sugar
	10 g.	instant coffee granules
	5 g.	finely ground coffee beans
	1 T.	black powdered color
	144 g.	egg whites
	72 g.	superfine sugar
simple buttercream filling:
	½ c.	softened butter (salted)
	1 lb.	powdered sugar
	¼ c.	half & half (could use milk or cream)
	1 T.	Kahlúa®‎
	3 T.	Whipped Cream Vodka

Be sure to use a scale to have accurate measures.I didn’t have enough lovely white Bob’s Red Mill almond flour, so I had to fill in with TJ’s colorful meal – didn’t matter much ‘cause it was triple sifted then colored with black.(Speaking of color… if I use the black again, I will use at least twice as much powder to attain a good hue.)The aged whites whipped up so nicely following Mardi’s directions. The folding in of the almond flour mixture took more strokes than she suggested.I was thankful for the wonderful template from Yumarama. You can see the trouble I had “free-handing” it…My piping skills obviously need much work!
The buttercream turned out quite delicious. I’ve got half of it left to top some cupcakes after Easter. YUM!Pairing up the shells before piping the filling saves a bunch of time!The coffee smell from the shells while filling was overwhelming!So overwhelming that I had to pour a cuppa and sample the wares right away…
If you’d like to see more interpretations of our Ebony & Ivory theme; check out these links:

An InLinkz Link-up