I'm a Daring Baker! October challenge French Macaroons

So I have only ever failed at baking somehting I set my mind to twice. The first time I had to have been about 13 or 14 and we were pretty poor at that time but my father wanted a cake. So I attempted to make a white cake from scratch with what we had available, and it turned out like a sponge. A dense cinnamon flavored sponge. To this day I say that I can't make a cake from scratch, but the truth is I've never tried after my first disastrous attempt.
So now I'm a daring Baker, and hopefully it will get my ass in line and get me trying some things I have never done before and also get me to try things I fail at over again.

The first challenge I have participated in was making French macaroons. And boy did I fail the first time I made them. I don't even have pictures of that trial run but it was a runny flat mess let me tell you. The second time I tried I took more time with everything.

Here are the first batch piped out sitting before I put them in at 200 degrees












To the left is what they look like when they
came out of the 200 degree oven. I baked them
for longer than what the recipe called for and
I let them sit for longer while the oven heated to 375 degrees because I wanted some feet!







FEET!!!!!!!!










I was so freaking happy when I pulled
these out of the oven










Look at those bottoms!













I made frosting from powdered sugar, butter and raspberry tea and lemon juice. The raspberry tea turned the frosting a super pretty pale pink. It was super sweet but really delicious.


























So they did not come out as tall and as neat as I would have liked but I got feet and hard shells with a chewy inside! They were super sweet but my roommate, best friend and my mom all liked them and that is what really matters!
I'm super excited for next month.
:)