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@marie
Thankyou. With french macaroons the exactl recipe itself doesn't seem to matter so much, its the method that makes the difference. That said I got nice results using a recipe I translated from my housemate's french cookbook (I can PM it you want?). I found that supermarket almond flour wasn't fine enough and made grainy/lumpy biscuit things rather than macaroons if I used it straight from the packet, so I started blitzing it in a food processor to get it down to like a powder consistency. Then the next nightmare is the mixing - once the egg whites have been whipped you have to sift in the dry ingredients in 3 or 4 small batches otherwise it clags straightaway, and you have to fold the mixture together using a certain stirring pattern otherwise the egg whites get knocked back and again you get grainy/lumpy biscuits that don't rise (there's videos on youtube that show the pattern). You have to be careful not to under-mix it either though. Then when you've got the mixture right you have to pipe it out in perfect circles, tap the air bubbles out of them, let the circles stand for 45 mins to air dry a bit (otherwise you don't get a bubbly base/feet when they bake), then when they finally go in the oven you have to alter the temperature up and down a few times to balance getting them to rise with getting the centres to set. Also I found that baking them on greaseproof paper over a baking tray worked best, the ones on the silicone sheet weren't as good for some reason.