4 hours ago, excv_ said:That's interesting, the recipe I used was indeed a french meringue one; I should try Italian meringue- based recipes sometime later as well. Good to know that it (probably)wasn't an error on my part or anything. As for the moisture/fresh whites part, would it help to let the egg whites age uncovered longer? This time I only gave them about 3-4 hours at room temperature- minimum time suggested by the recipe- so maybe overnight or so the next time.
In the past when I was doing lots of macaron recipe testing, yes aging the whites did seem to result in shells with better "structure," including vertical feet and fewer wrinkles on top. In those days I think most of us were aging a few days. Hermes macaron book calls for a whole week in the fridge covered with punctured plastic wrap. Another strategy was adding powdered whites to the fresh whites, which would have the same effect of increasing the protein/water ratio. But as you no doubt have seen in the macaron troubleshooting threads, there were always differences in outcomes that were tough to nail down. Did you flavor your shells at all (e.g. with espresso powder), or did you let the ganache do all the talking? The Herme version flavors the shells with powder and the buttercream with Trablit coffee extract. That's one I'm definitely excited to try.
Edited to correct: the Herme shells actually include the Trablit. And in the Lenotre version, the buttercream is flavored with powder. In the infiniment cafe version, the filling is an ivoire ganache infused with Brazilian coffee.
