Chocolate Macarons 2-Ways AND a Macaron Cake

I went on a macaroon-making binge. I made about 70 for an order. Then made more for a cake. Then made more for a party. I can't even tell you have many egg yolks I had in my fridge, but it was so worth it. Wanna see?

These macarons are filled with a rich chocolate ganache - my favorite!

I experimented with a few recipes. These puffy macarons were made with David Lebowitz's recipe, found here. They were tasty, reliable, and pretty easy to make, but I wanted a more shiny, classic-looking macaron.

Then I put the macarons on a cake. Why? Because I can.

By the way, this is a double chocolate cake filled with chocolate ganache and fresh raspberries, covered in more dark chocolate ganache.  You can stop drooling now.

 Yes, the cake is displayed on an upside down cookie sheet. I'm a college student, don't judge. The macaron recipe, by the way, is from here. The were pretty and yummy, but kinda finicky and I'm not totally in love with this recipe yet. I'll keep searching.

And another batch of chocolate macarons, David Lebowitz's recipe again. There's something to be said for consistency!

 These little gems were filled with a marshmallow fluff/chocolate ganache swirl.

 And then they were rolled in graham cracker crumbs.

Yes, s'mores macarons! Chocolate shells, fluff/ganache filling, and graham cracker crumbs. The only thing that would have made them better is to make the marshmallow filling from scratch and attack it with a blowtorch before sandwiching them to give it that campfire taste. These kept in the fridge for well over a week and they were so yummy. Very messy because the filling oozed all over until they had some fridge time to set, but it was worth it.

You'll definitely want to be licking the spoon for these. Want to know my favorite thing about macarons?

They're so easy to eat!