Add a shallow amount of water to a small saucepan. Heat the pan on the stove over medium-low heat while you prepare the other ingredients.
Add the raw sunflower/pumpkin seeds to a clean coffee grinder (mine is linked above) and blend until an almond flour-looking consistency forms. Careful, I almost made seed butter once by over blending! Add all the seed flour along with the powdered sugar to a sieve and sift the two together into a bowl. Add the chunky seed bits back to the coffee grinder and blend until fine. Sift the twice ground remains and repeat as necessary, until almost all of it goes through the sieve (you can discard some if there's only about a teaspoon worth of chunky bits).
Add a splash of lemon/lime juice/vinegar to a large metal bowl and rub all over the inside with a paper towel to clean out any grease. Place the cleaned bowl on a gram scale and zero it out. Carefully crack and separate the egg whites to get their weight measurement (save the yolks in a small airtight container for some other recipe). If the yolks burst, you have to start this step over because even if the meringue whips decently, the macarons will not be the same. Once the egg whites are measured, zero out the scale and carefully measure out the sugar in the same bowl. Bring the bowl to the now slightly simmering saucepan. Grab a spatula, place the bowl on top of the saucepan, turn off the heat, and mix with the spatula constantly until the sugar is dissolved (to check, dip a finger in and rub the mixture between two fingers. If you feel little sugar granules, continue heating until you can no longer feel them).
Remove the bowl from the saucepan, place it on a heat pad/towel, and beat on high speed with an electric hand mixer until glossy, fluffy, and stiff (takes about 7+ minutes). Add in half of the sifted seed/powdered sugar mixture and gently fold together using a spatula. Combine by cutting the spatula across the bowl towards you, scrape the spatula around the bowl, and cut through the center of the batter again. Repeat until the meringue and dry ingredients are just combined. At this point you can add food coloring if you wish. Add the remaining dry ingredients and fold together using the same technique.
Once combined, continue folding the same way by cutting across the batter twice before scraping around the sides. If you are confused, there are many tutorials on how to do the "macronage" but the most important thing to remember is to not overmix. Once the batter looks slightly looser test and see if it's ready by scooping plenty on your spatula and letting it flow off and back into the bowl. If it plops off in clumps, continue mixing. If the consistency is thick yet flows off nicely without breaking (sort of like smooth, slightly runny peanut butter), it's perfect, stop mixing. It's better to have the batter too thick then too thin. Please be patient with mixing as it is the most difficult part of macaron making. It's okay if you mess up, it took me about a year to know what to look for. They will still taste good even if they don't look perfect!
Fit a piping bag with a medium-sized circular piping tip, twist the bag right above the tip (so no batter will come gushing out), place the bag (tip side down) in a large cup, and fold the edges over the rim. This makes it easy to transfer the batter. Pour/scrape the batter into the bag. Place printed macaron templates on a baking sheet if needed (I always use them) and cover with parchment or silpat mats (I highly recommend silpat, linked above). Pipe all the batter into equal sized, distanced circles. Gently bang/tap the tray on the counter 2-10 times (less if you're batter was on the runnier side and more if your batter is thicker and you can see tracks from the piping tip). Optional: Pop and fill in the small air bubbles using a toothpick. Let the shells dry at room temperature for 30 minutes- 1.5 hours, until you can gently touch them without any residue on your finger.
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F (149 C). Carefully remove the printed templates by sliding them out from underneath the parchment/silpat. Bake the macarons for 11-13 minutes. Do not open the oven anytime before the 11 minute mark! After 11 minutes, gently touch a shell and if the top portion moves away from the "feet" (base) bake for one more minute. Touch test again and if the top and feet hold together, they are done. Remove from the oven immediately. If your macarons don't seem fully baked but are starting to brown ever so slightly on the bottom, remove from the oven immediately. Let the shells cool completely at room temperature.
Once they're completely cooled, carefully peel them off the parchment/silpat. Pipe some filling on the bottom of one shell and carefully sandwich another shell on top. Repeat with the remaining shells. And you're done! It's a lot of work, but they're so fun, cute, and yummy! Hope yours were successful and enjoy!
At the end of the day, store any leftovers in an airtight container and place them in the fridge. I actually prefer day-old macarons, because they become slightly chewier, less crunchy, and develop more flavor.
