Coffee Macarons with Caramel Coffee Ganache: Less sweet more delicious macarons

I think the taste of the macaron that everyone will talk about after the first bite is its sweetness, for me it's the reason why I don't make it often. But trying to adjust the recipe is not easy, baking is a science, esp. the macaron.

A little change will make the result unpredictable, so it always make me nervous every time that I try to make a new flavor.
I really want to make a Coffee Macaron that my mom will love (well, my mom love everything with coffee, if I put coffee in the batter, she will happy to taste it ^^), and with coffee flavor the sweetness will be less (bitterness from the coffee will balance it). Finally after about 3 times (that take about 4 months, haha, because I'm so lazy) I got the macaron shell that me and my family love its taste. The macaron contains both coffee extract and instant coffee, so the taste of the coffee is more intense. 
But if the shell is great but the filling is not, I still can't finish my job (^^, I'm just employ myself as a taster for dailydelicious blog), so the next thing that I have to do is making a filling.
When I think about the filling, I still want it to have a coffee taste, but only a coffee ganache, the one that use whipping cream, white chocolate and instant coffee is not what I want. I want a flavor that will deepen the taste. Then I think about caramel, the taste of the caramel always great when combine with the coffee, so why don't I make a caramel with a coffee taste ^^.
At last, I got what I want, the intense coffee macaron shell with the soft and chewy coffee caramel ganache, my mom ate a lot of it when I place a box of my macaron in front of her, haha, until she told me to take the box away or it will be gone. 
If you're in a good mood, you can make the macaron more lovely by painting it, using edible copper effect paint, well, I go a bit too far when I paint the whole pieces of the macaron, haha, but I think they are lovely ^^. But even you don't make any decoration, I think anyone who receive these will be happy. 

Coffee Macarons with Caramel Coffee Ganache

Make about 20-25

For the macaron base

75 g ............................ almond powder

75 g ........................... icing sugar

28 g ........................... egg whites

4g ............................... Coffee extract

2g ................................ instant coffee

..................................... yellow food coloring (optional)

For Italian Meringue

75 g ............................. caster sugar

18 g ............................. water

28 g ............................ egg whites

Caramel coffee ganache

70g ............................. Sugar

30g ............................. Whipping cream

¾ tsp ......................... Instant coffee

⅛ tsp ......................... Salt

30g ............................. Unsalted butter

30g ............................. White chocolate

For decoration:
.................................... Edible copper effect paint

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

 Put almond powder, icing sugar and instant coffee into a bowl of food processor, process until very powdery. Sift into a bowl, put egg white, coffee extract and color into the bowl. Use a pastry scrap to bring everything together. Set aside.
Make the Italian meringue:

In a sauce pan, put the sugar and water and bring to boil over medium low heat.
When the syrup reaches 100°C, start whisking the egg whites.

The syrup is ready when it reaches 118°C; pour it over the egg whites and continue whisking until cold.

 Mix together the base and Italian meringue.

The mixture should be softer and very glossy, a little stiffer then cake batter.

 Spoon mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 1cm nozzle. Pipe or spoon mixture into 3.5 cm rounds onto baking paper-lined (or Silpat) oven trays. When you’ve pipe out all the macarons lift each baking sheet with both hands and then bang it down on the counter (you need to get the air out of the batter).

Bake for 9 minutes to 15 minutes depend on your oven. Remove from oven and cool on trays. Slide a knife under each macaron to release.

Put whipping cream, instant coffee and salt in microwavable container, microwave it for 30 seconds or until hot and instant coffee and salt melt. 
Put the sugar in a heavy saucepan, place the pan on medium heat and cook undisturbed until the sugar begins to melt and caramelize-you’ll see a few wisps of smoke coming out of the sugar. Reduce the heat to low and stir occasionally so that the sugar melts and caramelizes evenly. While the caramel is still very pale add cream to the caramel at arm’s length, averting your face the caramel will boil up and may splatter out of the pan.

Add the butter and white chocolate, and stir slowly until smooth.

Spoon the filling into a piping bag fitted with a 5mm nozzle. Pipe the filling into the macorons

Sandwich macarons together.

If you're in artist mood ^^, brush the macaron with edible copper effect paint.

Coffee Macarons with Caramel Coffee Ganache:

 Less sweet more delicious macarons