Passion Fruit Macarons & Sparkling Mandarin Juice

My hubby has a serious Diet Coke addiction (he's still in the denial stage...).
But my (small by comparison) addiction is juice. I adore juice. 
So today for FHE refreshments I made these passion fruit macarons and some fresh sparkling mandarin juice.

I did a whipped cream for the filling, but you can always do a buttercream and just add passion fruit to it if you're worried about a little melt action. My cream doesn't melt but it gets a little soft at room temperature.

 

Passion Fruit Macarons

Macarons: (look HERE)

60 g egg whites
30 g granulated sugar
3/8 tsp cream of tartar
50 g almond powder/flour
90 g powdered sugar
Pinch salt
yellow food coloring

Passion Fruit Cream:

1/2 c heavy whipping cream
1/4 c passion fruit puree
1/4 tsp unflavored gelatin
3 tsp corn starch
3 Tbsp sugar

Directions:

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites. When they start turning into a white foam, add the sugar and cream of tartar slowly while still beating. Stop beating when soft peaks form. Mix in a few drops of yellow food coloring as desired.
In a separate bowl, sift together the almond powder, powdered sugar and salt. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold about a third of that into the meringue. Do another third until you have combined it all. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag with a large round tip.
Prepare a pan with parchment paper. Pipe 1-1/2 in. circles, leaving at least an inch of space between each macaron. Let dry for about an hour until you can touch them and they don't stick.
Preheat the oven to 300F an bake for 13 minutes, turning the pan halfway through. Once baked, you can immediately slide the parchment paper onto a cooling rack and let the macarons cool.

While they are cooling, make the cream. First pour the cream and puree into a mixing bowl. While beating that, slowly pour in the gelatin, corn starch and sugar. Beat until peaks form.
Pipe about half a teaspoon of filling onto the macarons to make sandwiches. 


Sparkling Mandarin Juice
Serves 2

7 mandarin oranges (Cuties are the best)
1 can Sprite Zero
2 Tbsp sugar

Directions:

Take one of the oranges and zest about half of it into a small bowl. Add the sugar to that and rub it together with the zest until colored and fragrant. That will serve as your sugar rim.
Juice six of the oranges. (I used a hand juicer over a tall glass.)  Peel the last orange and take one piece and cut it partway in the center. Use that to rub juice around the rim of each glass. Then take the glasses and dip them in the sugar mixture.
Pour your juice into the glasses and add the Sprite. Start by adding just a quarter of the can then taste it. Add more if desired. Take a peeled orange piece to use as a garnish and ten throw the rest into the glass. Add ice and done.