A recipe for perfect lavender macarons with a fragrant lavender buttercream filling. The buttercream frosting also works great for cupcakes and cakes!
Best Lavender Macarons
This fall, I was tasked with making macarons for a 200+ person wedding for some of our closest friends. As soon as I started, I regretted committing to the project! Making 500 macarons in an apartment kitchen is a fool’s errand.
Read on for the Lavender Macaron Recipe…
My recipe at that time was inconsistent at best. My approach was to make twice as many as I needed because I knew I would end up throwing away half of them. Even after making almost a dozen batches, they were still so finicky! The thought of making 2,000 macaron half-shells (to get to 500 macarons) just about put me into therapy!
The Perfect Fool-Proof Macaron Shell Recipe
I started having visions of going to Costco and buying store-bought macarons to pass off as my own. Then I realized this would cost me hundreds of dollars and I knew I had to try something different. About that time, my friend Sarah from Snixy Kitchen posted on Instagram stories about her macaron recipe that was so easy her toddler was helping her do it. Even though the recipe was for matcha macarons, I figured I could adapt it for the bride’s request of lemon and lavender french macarons.
Sarah’s recipe cured my macaron struggles! Even with my modifications the recipe consistently produces uniform macarons with uncracked shells, thick feet, and great taste.
Sarah goes into great detail on things you can do to increase your success with making macarons, including perfecting the macaronage (macaron batter) in her post here.
ESSENTIAL TIPS FOR MAKING FRENCH MACARONS
Once you have the hang of it, it’s easy to make macarons. It’s just a little tricky getting the hang of it. Here are my top tips for perfect macarons:
- Weigh all of the ingredients
- Sift all dry ingredients – twice!
- Age the egg whites for a few days in the fridge and make sure they are room temperature
- Get an oven thermometer to make sure your oven temperature is accurate
- Make sure the batter is the perfect consistency – Youtube helped me figure this out
- Bake just until the shells lift from the parchment paper when nudged with a fingernail
Why these are the Best Lavender Macarons:
- They are fragrant without being overpowering or soapy as lavender desserts can sometimes be.
- The macaron shell recipe is my new favorite and basically foolproof! It uniformly produces amazing macarons!
- Lavender buttercream is the perfect filling and also works great for cupcakes and cakes.
- Macaron shells store well in the freezer for future use.
Thanks so much for reading! For more Sweet in your life, you can find me on Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube, or subscribe to receive a weekly email with new posts and musings from me.
Lavender Macarons with Lavender Buttercream Filling
A recipe for perfect lavender macarons with a fragrant lavender buttercream filling. The buttercream frosting also works great for cupcakes and cakes!
- Prep Time: 60 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Yield: 20 macarons 1x
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: French
- Diet: Gluten Free
Ingredients
Lavender Macarons Ingredients
- 107 grams (1 cup + 1/2 tablespoons) almond flour
- 171 grams (1½ cups) powdered sugar
- 3 large egg whites (108g), room temperature
- 81g (1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) granulated sugar
- Purple gel food coloring
- 4 drops lavender essential oil
Special Equipment:
Lavender Buttercream Filling Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup egg whites (about 2 large eggs)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (1 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 1 inch piece
- 3–4 drops lavender essential oil*
Instructions
Make the Lavender Macaron Shells:
- First, read Sarah’s tips to know what the consistency of the macaron batter should be.
- Preheat oven to 300° Fahrenheit.
- Sift together almond flour and powdered sugar with a fine mesh strainer. Sift a second time and set aside.
- Whisk the egg whites and granulated sugar in the bowl of a stand mixture fitted with the whisk attachment. Increase speed to medium (4 on a KitchenAid) and beat for 2 minutes. Increase speed again to medium-high (6 on a KitchenAid) and beat for an additional 2 minutes. Finally, increase the speed to high (8 on a KitchenAid) and beat for another 2 minutes. The egg whites should be very stiff and glossy and clump together in the bowl. Beat in the gel food coloring and lavender essential oil.
- Remove bowl from mixer stand. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the bowl in a single addition. Use a spatula to fold the dry ingredients into the meringue using a figure-eight motion, cutting the flat side of the spatula through the center of the batter and pressing it against the side of the bowl. Repeat until the batter reaches the consistency of molten lava, about 40-43 strokes.
Pipe the French Macarons:
- Fill an extra-large pastry bag fitted with a 3/8-inch round piping tip with macaron batter. If you notice some unmixed dry ingredients in your bowl do not add them to the piping bag.
- Pipe the macaron batter on to baking sheets lined with parchment paper. If the parchment paper corners curl up, use a dab of macaron batter to ‘glue’ them down. To get consistent sizes, you can use a printable macaron guide under the parchment paper. Just be sure to remove the template before baking.
- Pipe the batter into a 1 1/2-inch round, swirling the tip and lifting straight up at the end of each shell, spacing the macarons at least 1 1/2 inches apart. Bang the baking sheets firmly on the counter 2-3 times to release any air bubbles. If there is a peak on the shell you can use a toothpick to smooth it. Let rest for 20-30 minutes, until the macarons are dry to the touch and the batter doesn’t stick to your finger.
- Bake one sheet at a time until they have risen, and the tops no longer jiggle from the feet, 13-16 minutes. Let cool completely before filling with lavender buttercream.
Make the Lavender Buttercream Filling:
- Bring a medium pot filled with one inch of simmering water to a boil. Place the egg whites and sugar in a stainless-steel bowl (like a stand mixer bowl) and place it on a saucepan. Use a whisk to beat the mixture until very hot (about 160F).
- Remove from heat and mix with the whisk attachment on high until it is cool, thick, and glossy and has tripled in volume, about 5 minutes.
- Reduce speed to medium and add the butter a few pieces at a time. Add the lavender essential oil and continue to beat until smooth and fluffy.**
Assemble the macarons:
- Pair the macaron shells by similar size and shape. Put buttercream frosting in a piping bag fitted with a 3/8-inch round piping tip. Pipe a dollop of frosting onto half the macaron shells and gently make a sandwich with the second macaron shell.
- If not enjoying immediately, store the macarons in an airtight container in the fridge. The flavor will improve with 2-3 days of ‘ripening’ in the fridge. If not using in that time frame, store unfrosted shells in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 3 months.
Notes
* There’s a fine line between fragrant and soapy when it comes to lavender! I suggest adding a drop or two at a time to figure out the right fit for you.
**Notes on Making & Troubleshooting Buttercream Frosting: If the frosting is too soft and doesn’t seem to be coming together, it’s possible that it’s too warm. You could try popping it into the fridge for 10-15 minutes and then re-mixing with the paddle attachment in your electric mixer until it comes together and is smooth and satiny. In general it’s hard to over-whip buttercream, so I would err on the side of mixing it longer to see if you can salvage it, even as long as 15 minutes!
Macaron shell recipe adapted from Snixy Kitchen
Have I inspired you to make these easy lavender macarons with lavender buttercream? Pin this recipe for later:
Here are some other French Macaron Recipes you might enjoy:
Lemon Macarons with Lemon Buttercream Filling:
Raspberry Macarons with Raspberry Filling:
Thanks so much for the recipe! How did you store the macarons to keep them fresh until the wedding?
I laid them out in gallon freezer bags between layers of parchment paper and kept them in the freezer. This worked perfectly! I then filled them 1-2 days before and kept them in the fridge until 30 minutes before serving. They tasted really fresh at the wedding. You definitely want to minimize the time at room temperature
Is the lavender essential oil ok to ingest?
Yes! Especially in the small quantities in this recipe.
Ok thank you!
Sorry you didn’t have any luck! Macarons are incredibly finicky and take a lot of tries when you are first learning. It took me several batches (of a different recipe) to get any to turn out well when I first started! I found Youtube really helpful. This recipe is from another blogger who is a friend of mine and it has been made dozens of time between the two of us. All the best.
Could I use lavender extract in place of essential oil? And if so, how much?
I have the same question!! I have extract.
How come you don’t use cream of tartar
the macrons turned out great! But the filling never turned into filling. It just stayed almost like a soup for me. I’m not sure what i did wrong
Oh no! Did you get a chance to try the recommend things in the “troubleshooting buttercream” section at the end of the recipe?
Wow, no, it is never safe to use essential oil in cooking. You should absolutely only use extract, never essential oil. I know you’ve used this recipe a ton of times, you’ve posted it, nobody has ever gotten sick- but the issue is that essential oil is not intended to be consumed and is NOT tested by the FDA for safety or quality. This recipe is not safe. You should not be doing this, and you should not be recommending it to other people.
There’s another problem, which is that there is SO MUCH lavender in essential oil that it will eventually make you allergic through overexposure, aside from the risk of getting sick directly. On average, it’s compounded by 250 times. If you fed this to someone who was already allergic, they would be REAL out of luck. Imagine feeding almond essential oil to someone who’s allergic to nuts.
You have absolutely got to change this recipe. It’s irresponsible to be recommending to people that they should use essential oils in the kitchen. They’re not in any way designed for that usage and, I cannot emphasize this enough, they are not tested by the FDA, which means they are NOT food safe and NOT safe to consume.
Wow, this all sounds very alarmist. You can actually buy food-grade lavender on amazon or at baking supply stores. The FDA does not approve food, beverages, or dietary supplements and companies do not need FDA approval to distribute products – that applies to both essential oil and extracts. Extract would not work in this recipe as it would add too much liquid. The concentrated nature of essential oil is why only a few drops is needed.
It’s also not medically correct to compare a nut allergy to a lavender allergy as they are actually two different immune responses. As a physician, I have not seen any reports of anaphylaxis to lavender although of course, I can’t say for sure it has never happened in the history of the universe. Lavender allergies are exceedingly rare but more commonly consist of things like rashes, itching, sneezing and coughing. Not typically life-threatening.
Hopefully, someone who is allergic to lavender is not going to eat these products given they are LAVENDER macarons – even if it is a few drops divided into dozens of cookies…
You can absolutely buy food grade lavender- you CAN’T buy food grade lavender essential oil. I definitely hope it sounds alarmist, because I certainly mean to alarm you, and everyone else reading this. Essential oil should never be ingested! It’s immensely concentrated, unregulated, and again, not intended for consumption. As a physician, you should know that, and it’s even more irresponsible of you to promote it with the knowledge that you have. And as a person with a mother who has one of those exceedingly rare lavender allergies, I can assure you that if she ingested lavender extract she would have more problems than sneezing. I’m not so concerned about her eating them as somebody who isn’t aware they have the allergy. People are already incredibly blase about using essential oils, and it’s not great.
My issue here is not at all with the lavender and 100% with the essential oil. You can achieve the exact same effect in this recipe with, for example, a few grams of ground food-grade lavender directly, with no issue whatsoever. Essential oils are so condensed as to have potential effects out of bounds of the foods they’re made of- licensed aromatherapists will caution kids and people taking regular medication to avoid essential oils wholesale, for example, despite it being their entire career. You can eat peppermint without any problem whatsoever; peppermint essential oil has a long list of contraindications with medications and medical conditions. Eucalyptus is excellent for coughs, and I always have eucalyptus tea when I have a cold; ingesting eucalyptus essential oil can lead to seizures.
I’m entirely aware that you yourself are incredibly unlikely to change this recipe of your own accord, and you’re probably going to keep making it like this your whole life without a second thought. My hope is that somebody scrolls down to the comments section thinking “is that safe?” and finds out it is not, in fact, a good idea. Essential oils aren’t for the kitchen and should not be taken lightly, and the trends for casually putting them in everything from macarons to directly under the tongue are sending people to the hospital. Again, if you’re a doctor, you should know better and you should be more careful than this.
This looks so good! What a fun flavor to make during springtime!
Thanks for sharing! Does it keep long?