Heart macarons for the "Jour du Macaron"

I wasn't really happy with my last macarons, the snowmen and bears, and I also wanted to practice heart macarons - they look so pretty on wedding cakes, but require some practice! Which day to better start that practice than the "Jour du Macaron", which happens to be the Canadian beginning of spring, namely the 20th March aka TODAY?
So I did some research how it could be that the macarons au chocolat were perfect, with not a single one getting fissurs, while the snowmen and bears were so problematic. I took the the 7 egg whites recipe of  the macarons au chocolat and converted it to 3 egg whites, and I got exactly the snowmen and the teddy bear recipes, so the composition was the same. My conclusion: I had folded the batter too long and I'm holding the 10-or 30-second rule responsible:
The Snowman recipe said: "Take care not to overmix, the mixture should flow like lava and a streak of mixture spread over the surface of the rest of the mixture should disappear after about 30 seconds."
The Bears- recipe said: "Run a knife through. If the line disappears after ten seconds, stop folding." However, in the French video that helped me make the perfect chocolate macarons, it does not look at all as if anythig would flow together within 30 or 10 seconds, so this time I ignored both rules and left the dough extra thick and such that nothing happens with a cut in the batter for way more 30 seconds, and voilà, the macarons turned out great and not a single had fissures!
I filled the macarons with butter cream, which was left over from a wedding cake test (more on that later!)

Ingredients for 15 large and 25 small macarons:
100 g egg whites, room temperature (about 3 egg whites)
2 g of red food coloring
50 g sugar

110 g ground almonds
200g icing sugar

Butter cream:

65 g butter

1/4 package of vanilla pudding mix

1 tablespoon sugar

120 ml milk 

Energy: about 70 kcal per Macaron

Preparation:

Beat the egg whites with the food coloring until soft peaks form.

Add the sugar and beat until stiff. 

Mix almonds and icing sugar and fold it in using a spatula. Initially, the mass is pretty stiff and not liquid at all, and it should remain relatively solid!

Put the macaron batter into a pastry bag with a large nozzle and pipe small Vs, a little thicker at the beginning and at the end than at the edge. It's okay if there is still some room between the two legs of the V, as the macarons flow together a bit!

On the first sheet, the hearts were too big, about 5 cm at the widest point. 

On the second sheet, I piped smaller macarons (about 4 cm at the widest point) and liked those quite well. 

Allow the macarons to dry at least 30 min and then bake them at 150° C between 10 and 15 minutes. I baked the larger ones for 15 min and the smaller ones for 13 min.

I tried to lift a macaron carefully from the sheet by hand while the sheet was still in the oven. When that's possible, the macarons are perfect. The hearts were practically falling off the baking paper and were really great in consistency!

I just hope that I can reproduce this once I really want to decorate a wedding cake with it!

For the buttercream, prepare the pudding according to package instructions and allow to cool, whip the butter and stir in the pudding spoon by spoon. Transfer the butter cream into a piping bag, pipe small Vs again, onto the macarons, and press them together in pairs.

Bon appétit et bon jour du macaron mes amis!