Buttered Popcorn Macarons

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Recipe's preparation

Macarons

First, prepare your baking paper. Also, a piping bag with a round tip of about 1 cm diameter (I just cut it when I’m ready to start piping). If you want your macarons to be really perfect and uniform in shape, just draw circles on the baking/parchment paper and lay it upside down on the cookie sheet, it will be your guide for piping later on. (I used the top of a milk carton for drawing circles….. but you can use a cookie cutter or there are also lots of “macaron templates” available online.)
First, make your almond meal by grinding almonds for about 10 seconds/speed 10. Then add the icing sugar to the bowl and press the turbo button 4-5 times to “sift” the mixture. That’s what we’ll call a “tant pour tant”, set it aside. Get your bowl clean and dry (I gave mine a vinegar rinse) and put the butterfly on. Add your granulated sugar, salt, egg whites and whisk for 4 minutes/3½/MC off. Your meringue has to be really, really firm, slightly glossy and looking maybe a bit too dry. Actually, it should all be stuck to the sides of the bowl. 
Pour the meringue into a big bowl (I used a metal bowl and metal spoon) and add the tant pour tant to it. Do it in spoonful additions and to be gentle about the folding… Just be steady, going at it with the classical folding motion but don’t pamper the batter, it actually has to deflate and get a thinner consistency. It should make ribbons that disappear into the batter after some 20 seconds. For this amount of batter, I usually get to this stage after 20 folds, more or less.
Pour the batter into the piping bag, cut the tip and pipe the cookies onto your sheets, spacing them about 5 cms apart. My recipe makes 48-50 wafers
Now, a crucial step: Leave them to stand for at least 15 minutes then lift the trays straight up (just a few cm’s, holding level from both sides (parallel to your work surface) and then just let go of them so that they tap hard on the table as they land. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat until you do all 4 sides. You’re letting out all those air bubbles which would cause the surface to crack if they stayed inside the macaron, not pretty.
Preheat your oven at 120C/250F/, no fan. The macarons will develop a “skin” while the oven is getting hot, maybe they’ll take a bit longer than your oven, about 25-30 minutes, you really don’t need more than that. Bake one tray at a time in the middle rack for about 18 minutes, rotating mid-time to get even baking (well, my oven requires this). My oven actually took more like 25-30 mins
To check if they’re done, just lift the corner of the baking paper and try to peel it from the bottom of the cookie. If it sticks, it isn’t done. If it comes off, just take the tray out and put the 2nd one in. Cool on the rack and make the filling 
For chocolate macarons, add 10 grams pure cocoa powder with the icing sugar for the sifting. For coffee macarons, 2 tsp espresso powder. For lime, lemon or orange macarons, add zest of 1 or 2 fruits along with the blanched almonds when making the almond meal.

Butter Cream Filling

Place Butter and Icing Sugar into TM bowl and mix on After 15 seconds, add in the milk.

Use spatula to assist if needed and scrape down the sides of the bowl if required