You finally got beautiful macaron shells with smooth tops and pretty feet. But when you break into them, they’re hollow inside!! Ugh, how I understand the frustration!!
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Well, good news is that you’re in the right place!
As someone who had struggled with hollow macarons for couple of years, I totally understand how frustrating it can be. After many, many testing I finally cracked the code to fix hollow macarons.
And because there’re many different things that could cause hollow macarons, you’ll have to test it out in your own oven. But if you try the following 7 tips, I can guarantee you perfectly full shells in no time!
- Use store-bought powdered sugar, because commercial powdered sugar has cornstarch in the mix. Cornstarch helps to make meaty macarons.
- Good stable meringue is the foundation to perfect macarons. Don’t rush this step! I prefer to make my French meringue low and slow, meaning whip the egg whites on low speed for longer time. Watch my French Meringue 101 video for more details. It’s also important to watch for the important visual cues of the perfectly stiff stage.
- Over-mixed batter could cause hollow macarons. Make sure the batter is just runny enough to flow into ribbon and melt back into the rest of the batter within 10 seconds, but still thick enough to hold its shape when piped.
- Piping technique plays an important role as well. Hold your pastry bag with macaron batter at 90° angle, squeeze the batter from the top at a consistent pressure and pipe the batter until desired size without swirling around. (Watching it in action.)
- Too high oven temperature could cause hollow macarons. Double check your oven temperature with an oven thermometer, because it’s very normal for oven temperature fluctuate up to 50°F up or down.
- Under baked macarons also collapse inside, leaving macarons hollow inside. That’s why it’s so important to keep close eye on the temperature of the oven.
- And lastly, make sure to mature your macarons. If your macaron shells have just a little bit of gap at the top, don’t fret. Once you fill the macarons and mature them in the fridge for about 24 hours, they’ll magically fill back up.
Tip
Got other macaron issues? Check out my full Macaron Troubleshooting Guide.
For me personally, my French meringue technique and piping technique made the biggest difference.
Hope one of these tips will help you fix your hollow macaron issue once and for all. And I’d so appreciate if you share your success story down in the comments!
My shells are wrinked on top. Any suggestions?
Please check out my Macaron Troubleshooting Guide and scroll down to wrinkled shells section. There’re number of reasons for this issue, and I shared how to fix it.
Can you explain more about how the shells fill back up with refrigeration? Can you do this with just the shells before filling them?
Hi, Tessa. I have no scientific explanation. But here’s my observation and understanding. If your macarons aren’t completely hollow and they just have a little gap between the outer shell and meat of the macarons, what happens is that the meat of your macarons absorb moisture from the filling and expand, filling that little gap. And no, you can’t mature macarons without filling.
Hello, in our republic there is icing sugar with potato starch. It is a mistake?
Hi, Jitka. I don’t think it’s a mistake. Just a different way of making powdered sugar, I guess.
Hi… I followed every step correctly and I got the perfect tasting macarons. But the issue is everytime I bake the colour of the macarons turn brown. I keep checking the oven temperature and make sure it doesn’t go over 300 f. I placed an empty tray over the cookie tray. Still the colour changes. Can you tell me how to prevent browning.
Hi, Suji! I just shared a new video on this very topic! Hope you find it helpful!
Hi…I followed your basic macaron recipe and I was able to get the stiff meringues, but when I added the powder sugar/almond flour I wasn’t able to get the batter to flow off the spatula like “lava” as compared to other recipes I’ve used. I made sure to fold it more than 50 times, at one point I felt like I was over doing it. Could you tell me what I did wrong? I measured everything out on a scale. I did only sift once, could that be it? Thank to
Hi, Kim. I don’t believe sifting the dry ingredients once would cause that issue. How many grams of egg whites did you use? Thick batter issue are typically caused by off ratio of dry and wet ingredients, or oily almond flour.
How many grams of egg do you use?
70g
how do you usually test for doneness when they’re in the oven?? i’m always so concerned about underbaking them that i feel like i always tend to overbake
Hi, Ashley. I lightly touch one macaron while they’re still in the oven. (Be careful, it’s quite hot!) And if it wobbles, I give it another minute or two.
What type of pans and liners do you use?
Hi, Ashley. I shared all my tools and ingredient details in this video. Hope you’ll find it helpful.
Are you available to help a 10year old whose dream is to become a baker on ZOOM tomorrow as she shares her love baking with her friends for her birthday? Her party is at 11am tomorrow, the 12th. She has chosen the most difficult cookies to make…lemon macarons.
We have it a test run. It flopped…but tasted great!
I don’t understand why she chose these cookies of ALL cookies on your website. It’s probably because it’s her favorite. She didn’t want to get up on making this macaron, though. I bought her a new machine and even hoping this will help her cookies turn out great.
Hi, Zi’yah! Oh how sweet that your daughter wants to bake macarons for her birthday! I wish I had a little bit more advance notice to plan things. I’m afraid tomorrow might not work out. What time zone are you on? Can you send me an e-mail with details as to how you’re thinking to do it via zoom? I can’t promise anything, but I’d love to help as much as I can. Happy Early Birthday to your daughter! Best!