I've spent the last month or so practicing the art of French macarons. With my colleagues and teammates as taste testers, I've found a couple of buttercream fillings that I think work well with the sweet almond flavor of the shells.
Last week, I made a lemon curd buttercream and a dark chocolate buttercream to accompany the robin egg blue macarons I made a few weeks before (macarons stay very fresh when frozen after baking them).
As far as the shells go, I'm getting more and more consistent at getting smooth tops and firm feet. There are just a few other things I'm still learning like letting the macarons dry out in the air more before baking. This helps them bake fully on the inside without browning the bottoms.
:^)