Preheat your oven to 200°C [375°F] or 180°C fan.

Using a pencil, draw sixteen 4 cm circles on a sheet of baking parchment. Turn the paper the other way so that the pencil is facing the tray. Line a baking tray with this paper. Set aside.

Over a medium heat, set a small pot of water and allow it to heat up until you see steam rising from it.

Set a large glass bowl or bowl from a standing mixer over the pot of water and whisk together the egg whites and about 3 tsp of the caster sugar. Whisk together until the sugar has dissolved and the egg whites become light and frothy. This will take around 1 minute.

Once whisked, remove the bowl from the heat. Place it back under your standing mixer if using. Attach a whisk attachment to your standing mixer or electric hand whisk.

Whisk your egg whites on a high speed, adding the remaining caster sugar 1 tbsp at a time. Make sure that the sugar is fully dissolved after each tbsp before adding the next.

Add in the white food colouring now - a few drops will suffice. Pour in the orange flavouring.

Continue whisking for a few more minutes. Once your meringue has reached stiff peaks, stop whisking.

Sift the ground almonds and icing sugar into a bowl twice. Gently pour this onto your meringue.

Whisk the mixture on a medium speed for a few seconds - just enough to combine it all together.

Stop whisking and begin to fold your mixture in on itself with a rubber spatula or metal spoon. Gently does it, you don’t want to knock all the air out of your meringue!

Starting from the outside, gather the mixture with the spatula/spoon and turn it inwards in circular motions. Continue to do this: this is folding in a mixture.

The mixture will be ready when you can form a figure-of-eight with it as it drops from your spatula/spoon from a short height without the mixture breaking. Keep folding in and checking whether you can do this until you are able to form an unbroken figure-of-eight. The ideal texture is like slow-moving lava.

When the batter is at the right consistency, spoon it into a piping bag/sandwich bag with a plain open nozzle attached.

Pipe the batter onto your prepared baking sheet, filling the circles you drew earlier.

Bang the bottom of the baking tray on the worktop a few times to remove any air bubbles.

Leave the macarons uncovered to air dry for about 15 minutes or until they are slightly dry looking on the surface.

Bake them on the middle shelf in the oven for 10 - 12 minutes, until they are risen and dry.

Once baked, leave to cool completely on the baking tray.

While your macarons are cooling, make your chocolate ganache.

Either over a bain marie [pot of simmering water with a bowl over the top] or in the microwave in 30 second bursts, melt together the chocolate, cream and butter. Remember to stir in between bursts if using the microwave. Do this until the mixture has completely combined and is nice and shiny.

Leave the ganache to chill to piping consistency. Place it in the fridge to do this if desired.

Once your macarons are completely cool and your ganache is cool and thickened, begin building your macarons.

Spoon the ganache into a piping bag/sandwich bag with your chosen piping tip attached. I used a 2D closed star piping tip.

Pipe the ganache on the flat side of 8 of the macaron biscuits. Top each one with the remaining macaron biscuits: flat sides in, round sides out to sandwich them together.

Use your various chosen colours of liquid food colouring and a couple of thin paint brushes to hand paint your designs! If desired, you can also use templates.

Use the white food colouring to create a snow pattern so you can mimic a snow globe on each macaron.