Macaron Madness!

I have never bought and consumed a macaron, but they are everywhere on the internet (or were 6 months ago, whatev) and I decided I needed to know if they tasted good or if they were just cute. Especially after BraveTart convinced me that anyone could make a macaron. Well, my first try a few months ago tasted great, but definitely weren't the cute, fussy confection everyone takes pictures of. "Ah well," I thought to myself, "I guess I'm just not the fussy baker type." And then I read "Macarons are for eating."

This is the clarion call to all bakers afraid of fussiness. I got so worked up and inspired reading this that:

Yep. I made macarons this morning. And just to show to any doubters that you too can successfully make macarons (maybe they won't be perfect the first time, but hey...) I would like to show you that I added two more degrees of difficulty to the whole process by 1) not using a stand mixer (I'm actually not sure that I get points for this, since I don't have a stand mixer, and didn't even have a choice in the matter) and 2) allowing my 18-month-old son to "help." Evidence? Sure:

This time, the macarons are a success on all counts. Just moments after taking my artful phone camera photo of the results, I had an incident with a poacher:

Lesson? Go for it. And if it doesn't work, do it again.