This recipe for vegan French meringue macarons is part of our on-going experiments to create macaron recipes that work for us. The base of this recipe is a French meringue using aquafaba. French meringue does not involve boiling a sugar syrup and adding it to the whipped aquafaba. These macarons are slightly less sweet than our vegan Italian meringue macarons.

Make sure to check out the recipe notes for additional information and tips.

If you try this recipe, leave us a comment below to let us know how it goes. We would love to hear from you!

Vegan French Meringue Macarons

Little Lighthouse Baking Co.

Crunchy and slightly sweet vegan macarons using aquafaba French meringue.

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Prep 35

Cook 15

Rest 1 30

Total 2 20

Course Dessert

Cuisine French, Vegan

Servings 36 shells

Equipment

kitchen scale
candy thermometer
silicone baking mat
electric hand mixer or stand mixer

Ingredients

75 grams almond flour
40 grams powdered sugar
30 grams cornstarch
50 ml aquafaba
⅛ tsp cream of tartar
50 grams granulated sugar
gel food coloring (optional)

Instructions

Prepare the ingredients.

Measure out all your ingredients and gather all your equipment.
Sift the almond flour, cornstarch, and powdered sugar together using a fine mesh sieve. Do this twice. It's fine if there are some larger almond chunks that don't make it through.

Make the French meringue.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large mixing bowl, add 50ml of aquafaba and ⅛ tsp of cream of tartar. Whisk on high speed until stiff peaks form. It will go from bubbly, to foamy, to a glossy foam.
For us, it's always significantly quicker to whisk the aquafaba with an electric hand mixer. It usually takes us no longer than 5 minutes to whip it to stiff peaks. Mixing the aquafaba in a stand mixer takes longer for us. Don't go by the time, but by the look of the aquafaba. It might take longer for you.
Next slowly pour the granulated sugar into the whipped aquafaba as you continue to whip it.
Continue to whisk on high speed for another 2-3 minutes. You will see the aquafaba become really glossy and start to thicken a bit as it gets mixed. This is the French meringue.

Make the macaron batter.

Add half of the almond flour mixture into the French meringue. We actually scooped the meringue into a different mixing bowl first. Fold the almond flour mixture in gently until fully incorporated. That means instead of mixing the bowl vigorously, you mix by scooping from underneath and then over several times.
Now add in the rest of the almond flour mixture. Fold the mixture until it is fully incorporated and the consistency of the batter runs off the spatula in ribbons. Don't mix too much or you will remove too much air from the batter. But you also don't want to mix too little. We want to mix some of the air out of the batter. If you want to color your shells, you can add in gel food coloring now.
We took part of the batter and colored it a darker blue to make a swirled pattern. We alternated adding spoonfuls of each color onto opposites sides of the bag to create the swirled appearance once piped.
Add your mixture to a piping bag with about a ¼ inch opening. You can tie off the end of the bag by the tip and place it into a tall glass or container to help you fill it.
Place the silicone baking mat on a baking tray. We used one half sheet tray and one quarter sheet baking tray. And we turned the trays upside down for better heat distribution.

Pipe the macarons shells.

Holding the piping bag vertical to the baking tray, gently squeeze the bag to allow the batter to run out and form circles about 1 to 1.5 inches wide. Ours were about 1.5 inches wide and we were able to make about 36 shells for 18 macarons. The amount you'll be able to make will depend on the size of the circles you pipe.
Carefully smack the tray down several times onto a flat surface to allow any air bubbles to come to the surface and escape. If there are any still remaining that won't budge, you can pop them with a small sewing needle. Big bubbles in your macarons could cause the shells to have an uneven appearance after baking.
Allow the macarons to rest until a skin forms on them and you can touch them without getting any batter on your finger. The amount of time this takes will depend on the temperature and humidity of your space. For us, it took about an hour.
Preheat your oven to 310° around the final minutes of your macarons drying.

Bake.

Place the macarons on the middle rack of your oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. The tops should be firm. The shells will have risen a bit and you will see what are called "feet". This is the bumpy or frilly part underneath the smooth top of the shell.
IMPORTANT: Allow the macarons to cool for at least 30 minutes. If you try to remove them from the baking tray too early, the sugar will still be sticky and warm. The macarons will rip as you pull them from the tray. Always wait until they are fully cooled. If there are any shells that you don't like the appearance of, you can test to see if the macarons are ready by pulling those off first haha.
This is what the bottom of ours looked like.

Fill.

The last step is to fill the macarons. This will be more or less work depending on what kind of filling you are using or if you are using something pre-made. You can use our Italian meringue buttercream recipe.
Match up the shells by size. You can pipe your filling onto the bottom of one shell and then finish the sandwich with another shell. It's commonly recommended to refrigerate macarons for 24 hours before eating them, but you can also eat them once you finish making them.
Enjoy!

Notes

Please use or borrow a kitchen scale that can measure grams.
We actually like to sift the almond flour, cornstarch, and powdered sugar the day before. It can take a while. You can sift double the amount in order to save half of it for the next time you make macarons. It’s really nice to have the almond flour sifted and ready to go to make the whole process feel even quicker the next time around.
If you don’t have cream of tartar, you can use a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice. The acid helps to stabilize the whipped aquafaba.
If this is your first time making vegan macarons, we recommend not experimenting with flavoring in the cookies themselves. The same applies to using a lot of food coloring. If you are going to flavor the cookies, avoid using oil-based or alcohol-based extracts. These will deflate your meringue. Also try to use gel or powdered food coloring. Water-based food coloring will also alter the texture of your meringue.
It’s best to use a silicone baking mat to make these. Parchment paper can become soggy and wrinkly while the macarons are resting. This can cause them to bake into an uneven shape. That’s why our eclairs and cream puffs get little ridges on the bottom, but we don’t mind those on choux pastries.
Avoid using very liquid or wet fillings. These will soak into the macaron shells and cause them to become soggy.
We like eating ours best the same day if they’re filled with chocolate ganache. When filled with buttercream, they stay crunchy and soft. They taste really nice the next day after refrigerating them.
As an experiment to try to add more body to the macaron shell, this recipe was created by replacing some of the powdered sugar with cornstarch. We will be editing the Italian meringue macaron recipe soon with a similar change.
Not many vegan recipes show what the inside of the macarons look like. This is what ours look like. They’re definitely not the same as non-vegan macarons, but they’re delicious nonetheless!