Ultimate Guide to Valentine's Day Macarons & Templates

Make perfect Valentine's Day Macarons with Mimi's best French macaron recipe. Download free V-day templates, instructions for DIY gift box and video included.

Jump to:

• Say I Love You with Valentine's Day Macarons
• Useful Macaron How-To Tutorials
• Valentine's Day Project Inspirations & Macaron Templates
• How to Pipe Heart Macarons
• Top Flavors for Valentine's Day
• DIY Macaron Box for Gift Giving
• Macaron Troubleshooting Guide
• Basic Recipe Using the French Meringue Method
• Recipe

Say I Love You with Valentine's Day Macarons

For the longest time, I thought that Valentine's Day in my adult life was meant to be celebrated with the person I was romantically involved with. It was only until I started to receive little tokens of love from friends, colleagues and children that I started to consider it as a somewhat inclusive celebration. It's a day that you can use to show others your appreciation and love. Well, that's what the chocolate and flower companies want us to believe right? I think Bill Maher said it best, "It's the one day when the whole country is telling you to buy flowers." Instead of flowers this year, maybe you can try your hand at making these sweet V-day macarons from the heart. I've included a variety of heart and Valentine's themed macaron templates, my best macaron recipe, macaron troubleshooting guide, shopping list and more. I hope this Ultimate Guide to Making Valentine's Macarons will help you get started and offer you some V-day inspiration. Wishing you a lot of love, hugs and kisses this V-day... and oh, flowers... we can't forget flowers, can we now? 🙂

XOXO,
Mimi

Useful Macaron How-To Tutorials

Before we get started on different Valentine's Day Macarons you can make, here are some useful links which will help you get started:

• Best French Macaron Recipe
• Macaron Troubleshooting Guide
• Yummy Macaron Filling Ideas
• How to Whip Perfect Meringue for Macarons
• How to Use Your Home Oven for Baking Macarons
• How to Make Multiple Colors from One Batch of Batter

Valentine's Day Project Inspirations & Macaron Templates

First of all, here are some Valentine's Day macaron inspiration and free macaron templates for you. Print out the ones you like to get started. Just sign up for the newsletter and you'll be sent the password and link to download these templates in the subscriber's only area.

Bear Macarons Hanging Onto Red Hearts

These little bears on heart macarons have been a reader favorite for quite a while. They are so cute and looks wonderful packaged in individual bags for Valentine's gift giving. I also love that they require only two different macaron batters and then you can decorate them with sprinkles of your choice.

♥  BROWN BEAR BATTER INGREDIENTS:
– 65 grams almond flour
– 65 grams icing sugar
– 45 grams castor sugar
– 50 grams aged egg whites
– ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
– Brown Gel Colour (3-4 drops of Light Brown from Americolor)

♥ RED HEART BATTER INGREDIENTS:
– 65 grams almond flour
– 65 grams icing sugar
– 45 grams castor sugar
– 50 grams aged egg whites
– ⅛ teaspoon cream of tartar
– Red Get Color (3-4 drops of Super Red from Americolor)

Tips for making Valentine’s Bears on Heart Macarons:

• Follow my BEST MACARON RECIPE for the step-by-step instructions to creating a strong and healthy macaron batter that’s perfect for piping macaron art.
• Prepare all the ingredients in advance in order to make two batches of different colored macaron batters back to back. Here’s  how I like to create 2 different colored macaron batters.
• Piping order for batter should be:
  • pipe red batter for heart (Wilton 10 tip)
  • pipe brown batter for head (Wilton 10 tip)
  • gently apply the heart sprinkle on the side of the head
  • once bear heads have developed a skin, pipe brown batter for ears (Wilton 5 tip)
  • pipe the bear’s snout
  • once heart dries, pipe brown batter underneath head for the paws (Wilton 5 tip)
• After baking, use an edible pen to draw in nose and mouth

Sweet Heart Macarons

You can never go wrong with using hearts to express your love on Valentine's Day. Below are a variety of projects and heart macaron templates you can use this season.

These Earl Grey heart macarons were filled with a mouthwatering lemon buttercream. The hearts were piped with the small heart template provided below. Once baked, sugar roses and fondant leaves were applied to the top with edible glue. Recipe to the Earl Grey Macarons and Sugar Rose Tutorial here.

These open-heart macarons were piped using the medium heart template provided above. To eventually fill them with sprinkles after baking, pipe a solid heart for the bottom shell and pipe an open heart for the top shell. You can also leave it an open-heart design by  piping an open-heart for both top and bottom shells.

Who says V-day has to be all about pink and red? You can also try non-traditional colors in pastels such as aqua and purple. This is a batter-on-batter technique. The aqua macaron batter was piped first and once it develops a thin skin, the purple was piped on top.

Marbled pink macarons can be achieved by following my Galaxy Macaron tutorial and mixing up the batter a bit more before sealing the piping bag.

Cute & Cuddly Animal Macarons

Bear bear macaron pop using the batter-on-batter technique. Follow my Rilakkuma Bear Macaron tutorial to learn how to make 3D macaron art.

If you already know how to make 3D macaron art, follow this piping order to make these bear macarons hanging onto their huge marshmallows.

1. Prepare macaron batter in three colors: white, purple, pink.
2. Pipe marshmallow with purple batter.
3. Apply sprinkles onto marshmallows before a skin develops.
4. Pipe head with pink batter.
5. Once the head develops a thin skin, pipe the ears.
6. Once the marshmallows develops a thin skin, pipe the paws directly below the bear's head.
7. Pipe the bear's snout with white batter.
8. Fill in the ear details with white batter.
9. Wait until your macaron dries completely before baking.
10. After baking, draw in the nose and eyes with edible pen. (I used black macaron batter instead.)

How to Pipe Heart Macarons

Using piping tip Wilton 10 and my small heart template, squeeze a dollop of pink macaron batter into the rounded curve of the heart on one side. You don't need it to fill entirely as it will spread later. Pipe slowly on a slant while decreasing the amount of pressure as you move further down to the tip. To stop piping, flick quickly back upwards towards the center. Do the same for the other side. Smooth out further with a toothpick.

Top Flavors for Valentine's Day

After making the macaron shells, you can choose to fill your Valentine's Day macarons with the fillings below. They are classic flavors that everybody loves so they are perfect for gift giving!

• Basic chocolate macaron filling using 3 ingredients
• Basic white chocolate macaron filling - easy and adaptable
• Earl grey macarons with lemon buttercream
• Low-moisture lemon curd macarons
• Lemon lavender macarons
• Strawberry basil macarons
• Ispahan Rose Raspberry Macaron Cake
• Spicy cinnamon heart macarons

DIY Macaron Box for Gift Giving

Once you're done piping, baking and filling your macaron art, you'll need a pretty box to put them in. Here is a tutorial that will teach you how to make a flat box which has a window for visibility and is shallow enough to show off your beautiful macaron art nestled inside. Full tutorial on DIY Macaron Gift Box here.

Macaron Troubleshooting Guide

Before you start baking, I wanted to give you this handy macaron troubleshooting guide if your macarons aren't as perfect as you'd prefer. The guide explains some of the reasons behind wrinkly, cracked, hollow macarons and how to fix them.

Basic Recipe Using the French Meringue Method

Finally, here's a basic macaron recipe to help you get started. It utilizes the easy French method of whipping up meringue by adding sugar gradually into egg whites that are beating, eliminating the need for heating up a sugar syrup.