Apricot Macarons

Ingredients

Macarons

4.5 ounce (1 3/4 cup) almond flour or meal
7.5 ounce (2 cups minus 3 tablespoons) Imperial Sugar Confectioners Powdered Sugar
Pinch salt
1/2 cup egg whites, no yolk traces
2 tablespoon Imperial Sugar Extra Fine Granulated Sugar
8 drops orange food color in gel or paste form

Apricot Filling

1/2 cup unsalted butter, very soft
1 cup apricot fruit spread
1-2 tablespoons apricot or peach liquor (optional)

Directions

Preheat oven to 325°F.
Set aside 2-3 cookie sheets lined with silicone baking mats or lined with parchment paper.
Fit a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch (Ateco 806) plain round pastry tip and set aside.
Combine almond flour/meal, powdered sugar, and salt in a food processor and mix until almond flour super fine. Set aside.
In a bowl whip egg whites and granulated sugar to very stiff peaks.
Stop whipping and immediately add food color and almond meal mixture. Using a rubber spatula mix until batter is smooth, but do not over mix to avoid making batter too runny. The batter should appear like thick pancake batter.
Fill pastry bag with filling and pipe quarter size and dome shaped mounds onto prepared sheets about 1 inch apart. Macarons will spread a little just after piping.
Allow macarons to sit at room temperature for 15 minutes before placing in oven. However, if you notice that macarons are still spreading and not holding their shape place immediately in oven.
Bake for about 15-17 minutes or until you can lift one up from the baking sheet without tearing it apart. If you see golden or light brown color develop on surface they are completely done.
Allow to cool on sheets they were baked on.
For filling, mix soft butter until light and fluffy. Add room temperature apricot fruit spread a tablespoon at a time while mixing. If desired, add liquor. If cream looks heavy and perhaps almost curdled, heat bowl with a hair dryer while beating and until cream is smooth and fluffy.
Flip half of macarons upside down.
Fill cream in a piping bag with a medium round tip onto flipped over macarons.
Sandwich macarons and place in refrigerator.