Tart and Tangy Lemon Macarons with Lemon Curd Filling. The perfect light French pastry for the Spring and Summer season!
Macarons are the perfect light dessert to add to your Spring and Summer dessert menu. Whether you’re celebrating a Baby or Bridal Shower, Mother’s Day Brunch or Easter Brunch this is one sweet treat everyone will delight in!
Today I’m celebrating my French heritage. There are a few of my Memere’s recipes that I’ve shared with you in my {Celebrating our Heritage Series}. Memere’s Homemade Bread and Memere’s Sucre la Creme are definitely two Family Favorites that we make often.
While these Lemon Macarons aren’t one of Memere’s recipes I have no doubt that she would have loved them! One bite and you will too!
Making Macarons is not difficult, however you do want to make sure you follow the directions. If you want to make the perfect macaron then you can’t just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix it up.
Unlike cooking, baking usually requires specific methods of mixing ingredients that need to be followed. For example, it’s important in this recipe to sift your ingredients as called for. Also, you want to make sure you fold the dry ingredients into the egg white mixture appropriately.
Follow all the tips to make the perfect Lemon Macarons and your guests will be cheering, “Ooh La La”!
Lemon Macarons with Lemon Curd Filling
Ingredients
For the Lemon Curd Filling
- 1/2 Cup Freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons Lemon zest
- 1/2 Cup Sugar
- 3 Large Eggs
- 6 Tablespoons Unsalted butter
For the Lemon Macarons
- 1 Cup Very fine almond flour
- 3/4 Cup Confectioner sugar
- 2 Large Egg whites
- 1/4 teaspoon Cream of tartar
- 1/4 Cup Granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon Lemon zest
- 1/2 teaspoon Lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- Lemon yellow food gel
Instructions
For the Lemon Curd
- Whisk together juice, zest, sugar, and eggs in a 2-quart heavy saucepan. Stir in butter and cook over medium low heat. Whisk frequently, until curd is thick enough to hold marks of whisk and first bubble appears on surface, about 10 minutes.
- Push curd through a mesh sieve to get any lumps out.
- Transfer lemon curd to a bowl to chill. Cover surface of curd with plastic wrap. Chill at least 1 hour.
For the Lemon Macarons
- Line two large cookie sheets with parchment. Set aside.
- In medium bowl, sift together almond flour and powdered sugar. Sift a second time and then set aside.
- In a large mixing bowl with whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and continue to beat. Slowly add sugar one tablespoon at a time. Increase the speed to medium high and beat until stiff peaks are achieved. Add lemon zest, vanilla extract, lemon juice. Beat on medium speed for one more minute. Add a small amount of yellow gel color at a time until you achieve desired color. Mix to incorporate.
- Sift the almond flour mixture over the whipped egg whites. Gently fold the mixture together. The batter will look very thick at first, but it will get thinner as you fold. Take care not to over mix it. To test the batter consistency, drop a small amount of the batter and count to ten. If the edges of the ribbon are dissolved within ten seconds, then the batter is ready.
- Transfer the batter into a pastry bag. Cut the tip off of the bag and pipe about a 1 inch dollop of batter onto parchment lined sheet. Place dollops about 1 inch apart.
- Tap your cookie sheet on the counter to get any air bubbles out of the batter. Then let the batter rest for 15-30 minutes. (You want to be able to lightly touch the batter without having any stick to you finger.)
- Preheat oven to 300 Degrees F. while batter is resting.
- Once set place cookie trays in the oven on the center rack. Bake for about 10-15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes on cookie sheet then carefully slide an offset spatula under each one and remove to a cooling rack.
- Once cooled place about 1-2 teaspoons on one macaron and place another on top to make a sandwich.
Notes
Nutrition
Recipe adapted from Sweet and Savory.
Lemon Macarons will dress up any Dessert Buffet!
Did I mention that these Lemon Macarons are gluten free! Even your gluten intolerant friends can enjoy in them!
Here are more of my favorite sweet treats. Just click on the picture for the recipe.
These were fantastic! I loved them and what a nice change in flavor. I was surprised to discover that the cookie part was so light and airy almost as though they were a meringue cookie. very nice.
Five stars for the macaron shells, however, I have to take a few away because the lemon curd had way too much butter! (Maybe it was a typo? I haven’t seen any other recipe for lemon curd, now that I’ve been looking, that called for more than 5TB of butter, usually much less.) It took 20 minutes to boil down enough to be thick, and even then some of the butter separated back out. Once chilled I was able to skim it off, and the remaining part was usable and tasted great. If I were to do this again I’d think I would try half that amount of butter, and preparing it over a double boiler to hopefully avoid having to strain it later.
Glad you enjoyed the Macarons Bri. Not sure what happened with the lemon curd though. I haven’t had a problem with it. It definitely shouldn’t take 20 minutes to thicken. I have made lemon curd over a double boiler, stirring it constantly but it does take much longer. Thanks for taking time to comment and rating the recipe!
In step 3, when you add the food color do you mix that in with the mixer or by hand?
Hi Sarah, The best way to incorporate the food color is with a mixer. You can certainly mix it in by hand, however it will take longer to mix enough to ensure that it is well blended.
Thank you!
I was hoping to make these tonight but i don’t have any almond flour! Is there a substitute i can use? If so how much? Thanks!
Hi Kirsty, I’ve never made macarons without Almond flour however you could substitute it with pumpkin or sunflower seed flower. Using the same amount. Not sure you’d have either of those on hand either though. I’ve also seen recipes that use grated white chocolate but you would need to adjust the recipe. Hope that helps. Thanks.
Hi, I was wondering if I could cut the sugar in the flour mixture to 1/2 cup instead of 3/4? I love Macarons, but recently they’ve been tasting way too sweet!
Thanks!
Good morning Najwa, I’ve never tried it with less sugar, not sure if it would change the consistency too much. I would definitely try filling them with something less sweet. It’s easier to control the sweetness of a buttercream, cream cheese or whipped cream filling by cutting the sugar added to it.
I used this Recipe this weekend for some cute lemon easter treats! I think my oven must be slightly cold because I never got a nice thick outer shell, although there was a thin shell, the overall texture of these macrons when I made them was relatively moist and mushy but Tasted great! If I cooked them longer to try and make them less mushy the shells turned golden brown. Also I strained the lemon curd after making it, I think that removing the left over chunks of zest and etc, helps give a good flavor. Plus now I have tons of left over Curd haha. Thanks for the Recipe!
Maybe try letting them rest longer?
I’ve been folding the flour mixture and mirange mixture and it’s not thinning. I’ve been folding for 10 minutes.
Hey, Mrs. Nicole! Your lemon macaron recipe is fabulous! I tried it, my first time making macarons, actually, and they turned out PERFECT. Thank you so much for the clear and simple instructions, not to mention the great flavor! Two thumbs up!! I would ask though, the baking time seems a smidge long. I did only bake my batch for ten minutes, and thought they were fine. Should I have kept them in for longer?
Good morning Eliza! So glad you enjoyed them. They are such a great light summer treat. I’m not sure about the 10 minutes for your bake time… I usually need them in for at least 18 minutes in a 300 degree oven but if they didn’t sink too much after they cooled and you felt they were done then I’d say that’s fine. Cook times can vary from oven to oven and also at different elevations.
Ok, that makes sense. Thanks for the advice!
Hi, I’m going to try this recipe for the first time and I was wondering if I can make the filling about two days before I serve the macaroons?
Hi Aurora, Absolutely. The lemon curd can be stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks. Just store it in an air tight container in the fridge.
Very good and VERY lemony! I’m not sure what I was expecting, but these had a crazy good lemon flavor. There are a couple people who criticize the curd, saying there’s too much butter- however, with the the amount of lemon juice in the curd, you absolutely need that amount of butter the keep it thick. I personally put my curds/fillings in the freezer for 5-15 minutes before piping to quicken the thickening process and it works great. Just don’t let it freeze completely!
Thanks for your input and tips Kaylee! I make this curd all the time and find it’s the perfect amount of butter as well. Great tip on the chilling of the curd. Perfect time saver.
My girls make your lemon Macarons and they were wonderful. I was wondering if you have any other flavor macaron recipes.
Hi Grace, Unfortunately I don’t have any other Macaron recipes on the blog yet. I do have a Raspberry Macaron that I’ve been making that’s great. I’m hoping to get the recipe written up and posted here this Summer.
My eggs are in various sizes, depending on the breed of hen. How many grams/ounces of egg whites are required for the Macarons?
Thanks.
Hi Diane, I usually use Large eggs when baking. One large egg weighs about 50 grams which is about 2 ounces. The yolk and the white are usually split 50/50 so the yolk is about 1 ounce and the white is 1 ounce. So for this recipe you would need about 6 ounces of egg for the lemon curd and 2 ounces of egg white for the macaron.
Just made these for the first time and they turned out perfectly!! I am wondering, though, if this recipe can be doubled?
Hi Brooke, yes, you can double the recipe. It tends to make extra lemon curd though so you may not need to double that part of the recipe.
I’ve been putting off making macarons because I thought they would be too difficult. Your recipe looked doable. I tried it today, prepared to fail, and to my amazement, they turned out nearly perfect! The hardest part was judging when they were blended enough., but I folded until the mixture seemed to be becoming just shiny and ribbony. My sizes were a little wonky, despite tracing circles on the reverse side of my parchment paper, but I’ve ordered some marked silpats, so maybe that’ll help. I’ll definitely make these again! The flavor was subtle and lovely. They even made little feet!
So glad they worked out well for you Mary!
Hi was just wondering when it says 24 servings is that 24 cookies or 24 sandwiches
Hi Alana, It makes 24 sandwiches.
Hello,
Can you tell me how much in weight is 1 Cup?
Thanks
Merce
Hi Merce, I’m guessing you are referring to the 1 cup of Almond Flour. 86 grams = 1 cup of Almond Flour …this is per King Arthur Ingredient Weight Chart. Hope that helps. https://www.kingarthurflour.com/learn/ingredient-weight-chart
when i made them the came out FLAT. but they were delicious
I’m really disappointed in this recipe. I’ve made macarons before and they turned out great, so I was a little skeptical of such a small amount of confectioner’s sugar and the use of cream of tartar. The cookies did not get a skin on after sitting out for an hour, and they came out flat. When I tried to get them off of the parchment paper, they stuck so bad that the middles came right off when pulled. The bake time also took way longer than listed.
The lemon curd turned out amazingly, but I was pretty disappointed in the actual cookie.
Hi! I made this recipe once before a few months ago and loved them! I was wondering if all would be the same if I just split the recipe in half? Just making them for me and my daughter today so don’t need all 24 (although I am sure we would eat them!!) and was wanting to just make 12. Do you think it would still turn out alright? Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Ellie, So glad they were a success. I’ve never tried cutting the recipe in half but don’t see why it wouldn’t work.
Can you freeze the assembled cookie with the curd?
I’ve never tried freezing with the curd in them. I would recommend freezing the cookie shells separately. I feel like they would end up being very soggy otherwise.
The cookie tasted good but it turned out real bad. I’ve been making macarons for some time now. They had no feet it was flat and didn’t look anything like a macaron. The macaronage itself was too thick. The lemon curd tasted great too
Delicious!!! I’ve never made macarons that have actually turned out well before until these. My family and friends were so impressed!!
The best lemon macaron recipe ever! I’ve tried so many different recipes and this one is the easiest and tastiest one by far!