How to Guides

Turkey macarons are one of the most adorable cookies you can serve on Thanksgiving as a specialty dessert.

You can also serve them at a dessert table with an animal themed birthday party, or farm style party.

You can make turkey macarons by piping orange macaron batter (learn how to color macaron batter).

Turkey macarons are made using a 1.5″ or 2″ round macaron.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these specialty turkey macarons.

Once your macarons have been baked and filled, you can begin decorating your turkey macarons.

Turkey macarons are made by drawing a face, and then adding the colored feathers afterwards.

Begin by drawing the outline of the head using an edible marker. It should be almost a teardrop shape, except it will be missing the pointed part.

Draw the 2 eyes in the upper part of the head. Alternatively, you add 3D eyes by melting white chocolate.

Poke the chocolate with a toothpick, and gently touch the chocolate to the macaron for the eye.

Do a circular motion as you remove the the toothpick from the macaron, it will pick up the chocolate and leave a nice round shaped eye.

Once it’s dried, you can add a touch of food safe black edible marker for the pupils of the eyes.

Draw a pointed nose below the eyes.

Add the feet on either side of the head. Make a “V” shape, and then add a line in the middle for the 3 pronged feet.

Now you can add the feathers. You can make semi circles around the macaron for the feathers for the outer layer.

The inner layer should be in the middle of the outer layer, to look like the feathers have multiple layers.

Once the macaron has dried, you can start coloring in the feathers. You’ll want to wait until the marker dries fully, otherwise the black color will bleed into the feather colors.

Using multiple colors – red, brown, yellow, orange, etc. Color the feathers by varying the colors alternately.

You can make the colors by mixing together food coloring (powder or gel) and almond extract.

Make at least 3 different colors for the feathers.

Using a fine tipped food safe paint brush, gently brush inside the lines of the feathers you’ve drawn on to the macaron.

Once the macarons are decorated, let them dry for 20-30 minutes before storing them in an airtight container in the fridge. You can store them for up to 3 days in the fridge. Or, store them in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Thanksgiving macarons will melt in your mouth when you eat them after your Thanksgiving dinner.

You can make macarons for Thanksgiving by decorating the tops of them into fall leaves, or drawing a turkey with colorful feathers.

You can even shape your macarons into pumpkins with a green leafy vine on the top of it.

Thanksgiving macarons are the perfect addition to a family dessert table.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these specialty Thanksgiving macarons.

Pumpkin Macarons

Pumpkin macarons are shaped into pumpkins and look more 3 dimensional with the ridges of the pumpkin popping out.

You can make pumpkin macarons by piping orange macaron batter (learn how to color macaron batter) into small circles.

Wait 15 minutes for the small circles to dry, then begin piping the rest of the pumpkin macarons.

Go over the circles with a thinner tipped piping bag to make the ridges.

Start at the side of the pumpkin and make a “C” shape on the edge of the macaron circle. Make another “C” a little further in on the macaron circle. Repeat on the other side of the pumpkin.

Pipe an upside down “J” onto the top of the pumpkin.

You’ll want to pipe the “J” going both ways on different macarons, because it will need to be sandwiched after, so it will line up perfectly.

Therefore you’ll want to pipe half with the “J” going on way, and half going the other way.

Let the macarons dry for 15 minutes.

After the macarons have been baked and filled, you can add a little paint to them to jazz them up.

Make a mix of brown food coloring (powder or gel) and almond extract. Make another mix of green powder or gel food coloring and almond extract.

Using a fine tipped food safe paint brush, you can add brown to the top of the pumpkins for the handle. Add a little green for the vine and leaves if desired.

Leaf Macarons

Leaf macarons are made by outlining a leaf shape using an edible marker.

Add the center part of the leaf by making the line a bit wavy.

Add crosses on the center line.

Make a mix of red, yellow or brown food coloring (powder or gel) and almond extract. You need a pinch of color, and only 1/4 tsp or less of almond extract. The less almond extract, the more potent the color will be.

Using a fine tipped food safe paint brush, color inside the drawing of the leaf you made on the macaron.

Turkey Macarons

Turkey macarons are made by drawing a face, and then adding the colored feathers afterwards.

Begin by drawing the outline of the head, it should be almost a teardrop shape, except it will be missing the pointed part.

Draw the 2 eyes in the upper part of the head. Alternatively, you add 3D eyes by melting white chocolate.

Poke the chocolate with a toothpick, and gently touch the chocolate to the macaron for the eye.

Do a circular motion as you remove the the toothpick from the macaron, it will pick up the chocolate and leave a nice round shaped eye.

Once it’s dried, you can add a touch of food safe black marker for the pupils of the eyes.

Draw a pointed nose below the eyes.

Now you can add the feathers. You can make semi circles around the macaron for the feathers for the outer layer.

The inner layer should be in the middle of the outer layer, to look like the feathers have multiple layers.

Once the macaron has dried, you can start coloring in the feathers.

Using multiple colors – red, brown, yellow, orange, etc. Color the feathers by varying the colors alternately.

You can make the colors by mixing together food coloring (powder or gel) and almond extract.

Make at least 3 different colors for the feathers.

Using a fine tipped food safe paint brush, gently brush inside the lines of the feathers you’ve drawn on to the macaron.

Once the macarons are decorated, let them dry for 20-30 minutes before storing them in an airtight container in the fridge. You can store them for up to 3 days in the fridge. Or, store them in the freezer for up to 1 month.

Snowflake macarons are glittery cookies you can enjoy during the holidays. They make for a gourmet addition to a tin full of Christmas cookies as a gift for family and friends.

If you need some ideas on what to fill your snowflake macarons with, check out these Christmas macaron flavor ideas.

See full video on how to decorate snowflake macarons at the bottom of the page.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these sparkling snowflake macarons.

You can color your macarons blue, or leave them as plain white.

Place Silpat mat or parchment paper onto an aluminum baking pan.

Pipe macarons as normal using a 1/2″ tip, in a circle ~ 1.5-2″ wide.

Let macarons dry for 30 minutes.

Bake your macarons for the same amount of time in your recipe.

Let the shells cool to room temperature – about 20 min.

Fill Santa body macarons with filling, and sandwich them together.

Dust a small bit of gold powdered food coloring onto a plate. Add a couple of drops of almond extract on top of the powdered food coloring. Use a food safe paint brush to mix them together to create your paint.

Using a pointed tipped food safe paint brush, draw a line across the macaron. Then draw a line perpendicular to the line you just drew so it should look like a cross.

Add a small “v” at the edge of one of the lines. Continue making V shapes along all of the lines until you’ll filled your macaron to the edges with your glittering gold snowflake.

Let the snowflake macarons dry for 30 minutes prior to storing in the fridge or freezer.

Santa macarons are a tasty treat to enjoy during the holidays. They make for a gourmet addition to a tin full of Christmas cookies as a gift for family and friends.

If you need some ideas on what to fill your Santa macarons with, check out these Christmas macaron flavor ideas.

See full video on decorating Santa body macarons at the bottom of the page.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these Santa macarons.

Color your macaron batter using red powdered food coloring or red gel food coloring.

Red macarons need a little more color than you think, it’s best to use at least 1/2 tsp of powdered food coloring, or more red gel food coloring than you normally would.

Red can turn into pink if you don’t have enough coloring, therefore it’s best to use more than you think you need to.

Place Silpat mat or parchment paper onto an aluminum baking pan.

Pipe macarons as normal using a 1/2″ tip, in a circle.

Let macarons dry for 30 minutes.

Bake your macarons for the same amount of time in your recipe.

Let the shells cool to room temperature – about 20 min.

Fill Santa body macarons with filling, and sandwich them together.

Using an edible marker, draw a thick line to create the belt on the macaron in the lower half of the circle.

Melt a small amount of white chocolate.

Use a toothpick to add 2 dots of chocolate to create the buttons on the Santa body macaron. You could draw on the buttons as well if you prefer.

Dust a small bit of gold powdered food coloring onto a plate. Add a couple of drops of almond extract on top of the powdered food coloring. Use a food safe paint brush to mix them together to create your paint.

Using a thin tipped food safe paint brush, paint a square in the middle of the black belt you drew on the macaron earlier. Add a straight line on the side of the square to create the “belt hook”. See photos below.

Let the Santa body macarons dry for 30 minutes prior to storing in the fridge or freezer.

Santa Claus macarons are a tasty treat to enjoy during the holidays. They make for a gourmet addition to a tin full of Christmas cookies as a gift for family and friends.

If you need some ideas on what to fill your Santa Claus macarons with, check out these Christmas macaron flavor ideas.

See full video on how to pipe and decorate Santa Claus macarons at the bottom of the page.

You’ll need to make 2 different colored macaron batters – one for the face, and one for the hat using red powdered food coloring or red gel food coloring.

In the example below, one macaron batter is “plain” – no color, and one is red.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these Santa Claus shaped macarons.

Draw your own template if you need a template. Use parchment paper and draw your design out using a pencil.

You’ll need to make a “forward” and “reverse” design so that the macaron will sandwich together once you’ve baked the macarons.

Basically you need the hat going to the right, and going to the left. Make sure you make the same amount of hats going to the left and the right.

Place Silpat mat or parchment paper onto an aluminum baking pan.

Place tracer underneath Silpat or parchment paper.

Pipe macarons using the face color as normal – 1/2″ tip, in a circle ~ 1.5″ wide.

Leave a little more room above and below the macaron for the hat. Keep a reserve of the plain macaron batter for the end of the hat.

Place red macaron batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/4″ tip.

Starting at the edge of the face, pipe along the edge of the macaron on the top of the face.

Pipe a small triangle going off to one side. This will create the hat. You’ll need to pipe the hat going to the other side as well to create a sandwich macaron.

At the edge of the triangle, pipe a small circle using the plain colored macaron batter for the pom pom of the hat.

Pipe all of your macarons this way.

Remove tracer from the baking pan.

Let dry for 30 minutes.

Bake your macarons for the same amount of time in your recipe.

Let the shells cool to room temperature – about 20 min.

Fill Santa hat macarons with filling, and sandwich them together.

Draw on the eyes and eye brows using an edible marker.

Melt a small amount of white chocolate.

Use a toothpick to add the nose and mustache, and little on the eyebrows.

Let the Santa hat macarons dry for 30 minutes prior to storing in the fridge or freezer.

Snowman macarons are a tasty treat to enjoy during the holidays. They make for a gourmet addition to a tin full of Christmas cookies as a gift for family and friends.

If you need some ideas on what to fill your snowman macarons with, check out these Christmas macaron flavor ideas.

See full video on how to pipe and decorate snowman macarons at the bottom of the page.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these snowman shaped macarons.

Place plain macaron batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2″ tip.

Place Silpat mat or parchment paper onto an aluminum baking pan.

Pipe head first, it should be small ~ 3/4″ – 1″. Pipe a small circle and quickly swipe the piping bag to remove it from the circle.

Pipe the body next in the same way, making it a little bigger than the head.

Pipe the bottom in the same way, and make it slightly larger than the body.

Pipe all of the snowman in this way.

Let dry for 30 minutes.

Bake your macarons for the same amount of time in your recipe.

Let the shells cool to room temperature – about 20 min.

Fill macarons with filling, and sandwich them together to create the snowman macarons.

You’ll only need to make the markings on one side of the snowman macarons.

Draw 2 eyes on the face, and a smile off to the side using a black edible marker.

Draw 3 buttons down the body to the bottom in the center of the snowman.

Dust a small bit of orange powdered food coloring onto a plate.

Add a couple of drops of almond extract on top of the powdered food coloring.

Use a food safe paint brush to mix them together to create your paint.

Using a pointed tipped food safe paint brush, add the carrot shaped nose to the face of the snowman.

Let the snowman macarons dry for 30 minutes prior to storing in the fridge or freezer.

Christmas tree macarons make for a special addition to a tin full of Christmas cookies as a gift for family and friends.

If you need some ideas on what to fill your Christmas tree macarons with, check out these Christmas macaron flavor ideas.

See full video on how to make Christmas tree macarons at the bottom of the page.

Templates for Christmas Tree Macarons

You can make tree Christmas macarons using a template that you create yourself, or free hand the design.

To free hand your own template, use parchment paper and draw your design out using a pencil.

To make your own template using a tree cookie cutter, place the cookie cutter on top of parchment paper.

Trace the outside or inside of the cookie cutter using a pencil, depending on what’s easiest.

You could make multiple tracings of the cookie cutter to make it easier to pipe out the macaron batter.

Place the template parchment paper tracer underneath your Silpat mat or Clean parchment paper that you’re going to pipe your macarons onto.

If you’re planning on free-handing the piping, you’ll want a narrower tip like a 1/4″ tip to create the points of the Christmas tree.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these tree shaped macarons.

Color your macaron batter using green powdered food coloring or green gel food coloring.

Place green macaron batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/4″ tip.

Place Silpat mat or parchment paper onto an aluminum baking pan.

Place tracer underneath Silpat or parchment paper.

Pipe beginning at the top of the tree first, then outline the tree.

Fill in the center of the tree.

Pipe all of the Christmas tree macarons in this way.

Remove tracer from the baking pan.

Let macarons dry for 30 minutes.

Bake your macarons for the same amount of time in your recipe.

Let the shells cool to room temperature – about 20 min.

Fill Christmas tree macarons with filling, and sandwich them together.

Melt a small amount of chocolate – you could use white chocolate, milk chocolate or dark chocolate.

Using a spoon, dip it in the chocolate, get rid of the excess, and add it to the Christmas tree.

You’ll want to start a little bit down from the tip, and make the chocolate zig zag on the Christmas tree macaron. There should be 3 lines of chocolate on the Christmas tree macaron.

You could also put the melted chocolate into a piping bag, and use a narrow tip on the end to pipe the chocolate onto the Christmas tree macarons.

Add sprinkles to the chocolate.

Let the Christmas tree macarons dry for 30 minutes prior to storing in the fridge or freezer.

Witch hat macarons are enchanting magical cookies you can make for a Halloween party, or wizard birthday party.

It’s easy to make these alluring macarons using an edible marker, and a bit of gold dust to embellish the cookies.

See full video on how to make witch hat macarons at the bottom of the page.

Witch macarons can be made with black, purple, or dark blue macaron batter.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these shaped macarons

You can color your macaron batter by adding 1/4 tsp of black, purple, or blue powdered food coloring, or use a bit of gel food coloring.

Pipe the macaron batter in a triangle. Then add a “C” around the edge of the wide part of the triangle to complete the shape of the hat.

Let the macarons dry for 30 minutes.

After the macarons been baked and filled, you can add the embellishments of the hat.

Depending on the color you chose to make your witches hat, you might want to use an edible marker, gold dust mixed with almond extract, or melted chocolate to make the ribbon around the bottom edge of the hat.

You can see here I used an edible marker to make the ribbon.

Next, I mixed together a pinch of gold dust, and 1/4 tsp of almond extract to make “paint”.

Then I used a food safe paint brush to make the belt buckle on the witches hat.

Draw a rectangle or square first on the center of the ribbon. Then add a small buckle, a very short line on one side of the box to create the buckle for the hat.

Speckled macarons are gourmet cookies you can make for Easter, Halloween, or bring to birthday party.

You can make them look like a robins egg, or like an Easter egg, depending on the color you’re going to speckle them with.

Speckled macarons can be made with any color or macaron batter.

You can use your favorite macaron recipe and bake for the exact time in your recipe to make these unique macarons.

If you’re wanting to make robin’s egg macarons, you can color the macaron batter light blue. Add 1/4 tsp of blue powdered food coloring, or a little bit of gel food coloring to the macaron batter.

You can also just have a plain white macaron that doesn’t have any color to it.

The macaron shells can be piped to the normal size of 1.5″ or 2″ circles.

Before the macarons are set to dry, you can add the speckled decoration onto the macarons.

Make a mix of a pinch of powdered food coloring or gel food coloring that you want to speckle your macaron with, and a little almond extract.

Using a flat food safe paint brush and dip it into the paint you just made.

Using your finger, push back on the bristles, and then let them go. This will give you the speckled look to the macarons.

Let the macarons dry for 30 minutes.

Bake and fill the macarons your favorite filling.