Macarons au Chocolat - French Chocolate Macarons

As so often with good baking ideas, it was my little sister who thought of making French Macarons au Chocolat. After researching them on YouTube she found this French video, where this recipe comes from (I only reduced the amount of ganache a bit).
Thanks to the video, I've figured out that  "1 c. á thé" in French recipes means "1 tea spoon", for "cuillère à thé" - I didn't remember learning that in school! And we see yet again that baking educates. ;-)

Ingredients for 60 pieces:

250 g finely ground almonds

450 g powdered sugar

40 g cocoa

7 egg whites

1 TSP lemon juice

50 g powdered sugar

For the ganache:

200 g whipping cream

160 g chopped chocolate with 70% cocoa

35 g butter

Energy: 90 kcal per piece

Preparation:
Line 4 baking racks with baking paper folded to shape, or fold the baking sheets to the shape of the rack and lay them on the counter.  Sieve the almoncs, powdered sugar and the cocoa into a bowl and mix them.

Beat the egg whites with the lemon juice in a big bowl, add 25 g of powdered sugar, continue beating, add the remaining 25 g of powdered sugar and finish once the egg whites are very stiff.

Add the almond mixture, use a spatula to knead the dough until you reach a shiny, elastic consistence. You can see that very nicely in the video.

Use a piping bag to pipe small dots on the baking sheets, about 30 per rack. Do not pipe circles or spirals, but use a pastry bag tip with a big opening, hold it just over the paper, pipe a dot and remove the piping bag in a fast upwards motion - cf. the video (the gentleman does that with an awesome speed...)! My great new piping bad did very well, maybe that's also a reason why these Macarons turned out much better than those from my first try.

If necessary, knock on the underside of the rack to flatten the tips on the Macarons.

Let the Macarons dry for at least 20 minutes, then bake them for about 25 minutes at 150°C upper/lower heat or at 130°C with convection; I used two racks at a time at 130°C with convection.

The Macarons are perfect if the surface stays smooth and little "feet" form on the side.

As soon as the Macarons are on the racks, heat the whipping cream for the Ganache, add the chopped chocolate and use a blender to stir the two, add the butter and mix smooth. Pur the mix into a piping bag and set in a cool place.







Wait until the Macarons have cooled completely and use a sharp knife to loosen them from the baking sheet, if necessary, free the knife of sticky macaron rests from time to time.

Combine two Macarons, using the Ganache for glue by piping a big dot on the underside of one Macaron, adding the second one, and pressing them together. Et voilà!

The Macarons keep best in the fridge - in case there are leftovers, but 90 are a lot of Macarons to eat for anyone. Apparently, some Parisian Chocolatiers say the Macarons even have to rest in the fridge for 48 hours, but I didn't do that.
Macarons go very well with Cappuccino. These were a present for a colleague, I put exactly 48 Macarons in two layers into the 20x20 cm box. Bon appetit!