Baby Shower Macarons

I got hired to make 40 macarons for a baby shower, matching the invitation, which was diagonally striped pink and white, with little silver fleur de lis embellishments.  I made vanilla macarons with vanilla Swiss buttercream, and colored half the cookies and half the buttercream pink. I sprinkled the cookie shells with silver sugar sprinkles, and then I put them in the box alternating colors, so they would form diagonal stripes, just like the invitation!  They came out so cute... I love how macarons look, but they sure are a pain to make!  Just to make the cookie batter itself takes 30 minutes!  The 40 macarons took 5 hours to make, not including cleaning up my kitchen after I was done!  They're so wonderful, though - the cookies have a thin, crisp outer layer which melts in your mouth and then the creamy Swiss buttercream inside is so delicous!  Macarons (both the cookie shells and the buttercream) only have 5 ingredients : almond flour, sugar, butter, vanilla, and egg whites, but it's all in the technique to get them to come out correctly.  Only the French could invent something this difficult and this delicious!