Happy Year of the Pig! To welcome the lunar new year, I baked little piggy macarons! They are all ready to celebrate and 拜年 ('bai nian' - house visiting during CNY). Can't decide which is my favourite piggy, as they all are so adorable. If I had to choose, it'd be the little piggy holding the mandarin oranges 🍊🍊

These are relatively simple to make - only require one base batter colour, that is light pink. The round shape also makes this easier to pipe. For the rest of the details, you can prepare colored batters and transfer to piping bags with small tips.

YEAR OF THE PIG MACARONS RECIPE
by Sumopocky

Yield: ~ 20 macarons

Ingredients
[For Macaron Shells]
Meringue: 70g of Egg whites + 90g of Castor sugar
80g of Almond flour
80g of Powdered/icing sugar
Food colouring to get the batter colours in Step 4

[For Filling]
Click here to fill with your desired flavour!

Directions
[For Macaron Shells]
1. Make the meringue. In a bowl, beat the egg whites on low speed using an electric mixer until it is white and frothy (approximately 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar 1/4 at a time. When the first addition of sugar has completely dissolved (approximately 1 minute later), increase the mixer speed to medium and add until all the sugar has been incorporated. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form. [Basic Macaron Tutorial Video]
2. Sift the almond flour and icing sugar to the meringue.
3. Begin macaronage. Using a spatula, start the macaronage process by folding and lightly scraping the top of the batter. Continue until the wet and dry ingredients just start to become combined. In other words, you can't see traces/clumps of almond flour/icing sugar in the meringue. At this point, the batter should still be quite tacky.
4. Prepare different colours of batter based on the table below with food colouring. By estimation, split the batter into the portions you think you require. I've shared a guide in the table below (if there's too much of a colour, you can always use it to pipe plain macarons 😉). Continue the macaronage till you get a molten-like texture, then transfer to piping bags.

Batter Color Pink Orange Green Red Black Light Pink

Estimated Portion 2 tbsp 1 tbsp 1/2 tbsp 2 tbsp 1 tbsp Remaining batter

Piping Bag Tip Size small small small small small medium

5. Pipe out batter onto parchment paper. Please refer to video above for demonstration.
6. Let the shells dry in a non humid place or in an air conditioned room. You should be able to touch it gently with the tip of your finger without it sticking.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 150°C for approximately 15 minutes.
8. Let shells cool before piping with filling. Enjoy!