White Day Macarons

French and Italian sweets are all the rage in Japan, and that means macarons (not to be confused with the coconut macaroons) on are everywhere, though honestly I was never curious enough to try these. After all, they're just...cookies. But I was so very wrong. A couple of weeks ago hubby's advisor gave us an omiyage - a box of macarons - from her trip to Nagoya, and that was when I finally realized what a fool I was for not getting all over these much much sooner. They're delicious!

So when White Day was approaching, I thought I'd treat myself to an 8-piece gift set from my local Patisserie Chou Chou.

These aren't the most colorful macarons around, but I don't really any more food coloring than I already get :P I'm glad I tried these, actually. They were really yummy! I wish they'd put lots more butter cream in the middle though, but of course that's just the piggie in me speaking ^.^

Top row, left to right: Cocoa, coffee, almond, macha,

Bottom row, left to right: Strawberry, lemon, black sesame, and cocoa

I ate lemon, cocoa, and coffee first ^.^

Then on White Day, to my great surprise a Parisian gentleman in our class gave all of us gals each a box of  macaron from Ardeur, how nice is that?!? I've seen these on display at Yokohama station the week approaching both Valentine's Day and White Day, but I didn't buy because they looked a bit too fancy all wrapped up in gift boxes. But what do you know, I ended up with a box after all. いただきます B-san! 

5-piece gift set from Ardeur. From left to right: Salted Caramel, Macha, Strawberry, Yuzu, and Gianduja (chocolate).

And it turns out Ardeur makes these in a gazillion flavors too! 

Needless to say, I had to stop myself from eating them all in 1 sitting. They didn't last through the next day though, that's for sure.

Yuzu and salted caramel. 

Macha and strawberry

Gianduja, which is a really fancy word for chocolate.

Of course I ate yuzu and salted caramel first! The yuzu was alright, as the flavor was weak and the yuzu didn't quite come through. The salted caramel was weak too, although I did taste the salt, which was unexpected and nice. Over all, I liked the macarons from Patisserie Chou Chou better as they didn't crumble so easily and was more chewy, which I liked. But these were yummy too.