Carmalized White Chocolate Macarons

Recently, David Lebovitz posted a recipe for Caramelized White Chocolate. I think people all over the world drooled onto their keyboards as they read his post, and immediately bought the highest quality white chocolate they could find so as to make said sinful looking confection. I sure did, anyways.
No pictures of the caramelizing process itself. It is ugly and not picture worthy. He talks about needing a white chocolate with a high cocoa butter content, and I'm fairly sure my white chocolate doesn't have a content that high. My caramelizing process was not nearly so pretty as his. Down right fail-looking, in fact. The chocolate turned that nice caramel-y color, but it got lumpy and gross looking, like it had seized horribly. I mean, a seriously irretrievable chunky looking mess. But, he also says if it looks a little lumpy (a little!?!), to run it through the blender and it will be fine. Well, lo and behold, if you puree that mess long enough it turns back into lovely smooth melted chocolate.
Add about half the chocolate's weight in warm cream, and you get the irresistible ganache for the middle of these macarons. Oh yeah, I'm still disgustingly obsessed with the macarons. I'll eat them until they make me feel sick. They make me write in flowery adjective-filled sentences. AND!!!, I finally got the hang of the real macaron recipe. They looked right before, but they were wrong on the inside. Now they're the right inside and out! So ridiculously obsessed. No joke, these little cookies are going to be the next big thing. Macarons will be the new cupcake.

Big thanks and hugs to Michelle for playing photographer with me and helping set up and take the pictures. If you squint you might just be able to see her holding up the backdrop in the pictures ;)

Macarons
120 g aged egg whites (about 4 eggs worth)
200 g confectioners sugar
115 g almond flour
2 T cocoa powder
55 g granulated sugar

Sift together the confectioners sugar, almond flour, and cocoa powder. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until foamy, then start slowly pouring in the granulated sugar. Continue beating until the egg whites are stiff. Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the dry ingredients. Add the rest of the egg whites. Do not over beat. The consistency should be flowy, but if you lift a spoonful out of the batter, it will break off, not drizzle off.
Pipe the macarons onto your silpat mat or parchment paper. Set the oven to 320 F. Let the macarons sit for 10 min or so. Place in oven and bake for 5 or 6 minutes at 320 F. After that, turn the oven down to 270 F, and prop the oven open with the handle of a wooden spoon. Bake for another 7 - 8 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool for at least 10 minutes before trying to remove from the silpat/parchment. Let completely cool before filling.