Black forest macarons

I had extra egg whites and just a little smidgen of cream leftover from a 1L bottle in the fridge. I hate waste. So I put my brain to good use, and the first thing that came to mind was - ding ding ding, macarons. But what flavour macarons should I make? Tough choice. I had a whole list of potential flavours I wanted to try out. Somehow, I have no idea how, black forest came into mind. I don't really fancy anything black forest-y and it wasn't even on my list of flavours to make! Yet, we had just gone to the wholesale vegetables and fruits place recently and got ourselves lots of fresh fruits - a big box of peaches (20 of 'em!), 4 punnets of strawberries and a 2kg bag of huge-ass cherries. Ah. Cherries. Succulent juicy red cherries that dribble juice down your chin when you bite into the  huge red orbs. Black forest macarons it shall be then.

Black forest macarons

Cherry jam compote

I attempted a David Lebovitz recipe for cherry jam, but I screwed it up. I overcooked the jam and when I realised it, whoops, it was way too late and thus, it was a thick caramel-like consistency. I was panicking cos I didn't want to waste the cherries, so I ended up adding more hot water to it and thus, I think it became sort of like a cherry compote. :/ 

First - pipe the white chocolate ganache; second - put a dollop of cherry compote; third - throw in some Valrhona chocolate pearls

I was debating whether I should sandwich the macarons with whipped cream cos that's how most black forest cakes is filled with. But I don't trust whipped cream cos 1) I can easily overwhip the cream, 2) I was afraid that the cream might "weep" after a few days in the fridge. So, I decided to use a white chocolate ganache instead.

Chocolate shells; Filling the macarons

The black forest macarons turned out pretty okay I think. Cherry and chocolate is great together. Perhaps I should have used whipped cream cos the white chocolate ganache was a little too sweet for my liking. But since I'm slowly (but surely) becoming a macaron addict convert, I think I'm contented with macarons in just about any flavours. :)