So guys, I actually went on the macaron hunt and I actually finished the punch card giveaway (get your punch card punched at 12 places, redeem it for a free box of 6 macarons from Francois Payard). I’m still amazed by it.
The night before Tuesday, March 20th, I stayed up until 4am devising my game plan. I mapped out all of the possible locations I could hit on Google Maps:
View Macaron Hunting in a larger map
And then, I devised a whole step-by-step plan of exactly how to get to each place, and when to go to them. Here is the result:
Surprisingly, my directions were pretty accurate. I had little difficulty finding the bakeries/cafes and the subway stations. I’m still proud of myself for coming up with such a precise layout.
Then I went to sleep. When my alarm rang at 7:45, I was hesitant to get out of bed. I was extremely tired and I felt a slight headache approaching. I laid around for a couple of minutes, questioning myself. Is this really worth it? Do I really want to go? Should I just sleep in? I don’t want to have to go to the stores and ask for free things. It’s awkward. I don’t like awkward situations. But then again, will I regret not going? At that moment, I just got out of bed. There was no point in thinking about it. I had to do this. So, without a second thought, I got dressed and left for my journey.
The morning was foggy and a bit chilly. Not a good sign. On the train, I felt nauseous. Not a good sign either. But once I got out of the station at 5 Av/53rd St, the sun was shining and my spirit lifted. I am going to do this. And I did. I went to 14 different stores, from Midtown, to Columbus Circle, to Lenox Hill, to Upper East Side, to East Village, to Lower East Side, to Greenwich Village, and finally to SoHo. What a journey. Altogether, I walked about 6.5 miles. Now my feet are blistered and my legs are sore. But I have no regret.
As I received the macarons, I stored them away. It was much too early for me to take in sweets. And I wanted to share them with my family.
The awkwardness that I worried about…well, it didn’t even exist. All the stores were friendly and unquestioning. Some places that stood out to me:
FC Chocolate Bar at the Plaza: (I walked from Columbus Circle, along Central Park South, to 6th Ave. It was such a nice walk. I love walking around here.) The store was upscale yet quaint. The atmosphere was inviting. There was a table in the center of the store with boxes of different flavor macarons. I think there were about 4 options. This was the first store that I visited that offered more than two choices. It was difficult for me to choose though. Too many choices! When I left the store, I headed to Madison Ave. But on the way, I stopped to admire the Plaza. I whipped out my camera to capture its beauty when all of the sudden, a man sitting in his car, parked at the edge of the sidewalk, called out to me, “Are you taking my picture? Hold on.” He then proceeded to fix his hat and then posed and smiled at my camera. LOL I have to picture to prove it! 
Macaron Café (Madison Ave): This place stood out to me because of how colorful it was. There were so many bright flavors – many untraditional, i.e. nutella, orange blossom, crème brulée, etc. I regret not getting the orange blossom. Not that I didn’t like my choice. I just wish I tried something special. Macaron Cafe was also different from the others because they let me choose from their WHOLE collection. All of the other stores reserved only certain macarons for options. (Note: They were the only store that didn’t take part in the punch card giveaway.)
Mad-Mac at Bernardaud: Right across the street from Macaron Cafe was Mad-Mac. It was located inside the small Bernardaud shop of expensive French glasswares. There was a small table towards the back, with two small plates of mini-macarons: pistachio and chocolate. They let me take one of each! So Mad-Mac goes down in my book as the most interesting (and classiest) location to offer macarons and as the most generous :D
Macaron Parlour: On St. Marks Place, this shop was a little hole in the wall, as far as hole-in-the-wall shops go. This location has yet to be officially open. (On the website, they say that they will open at this location sometime in the summer.) Like Macaron Cafe, Macaron Parlour offers many interesting flavors, such as bubblegum, nutella (again), and red velvet. I love the options here. They’re so fun!
Bisous ciao.: I loved how they displayed their free macarons. If only I took a picture of the display case! They made the macarons into lollipops and attached pieces of chocolate to the outside of the shells. One side had a small “b.” The other side was a QR code, that has something to do with Twitter, I believe. Or so I heard the employee tell me.
Francois Payard: The only store I visited that had a crowded line that spanned throughout the whole shop and onto the sidewalk. That being said, the store was quite small and the line moved quickly. But it was hectic in there. Somehow, I coincidentally planned Payard as the 13th location (excluding Macaron Cafe because they didn’t participate in the giveaway). So I already finished the necessary amount to redeem my card for the special giveaway. 
I just redeemed it then and there. And it was the best coincidental event to happen to me. Because when I redeemed my card, unlike on the Macaron Day website, I received more than a box of 6 macarons. The employee gave me a box of TWELVE and a tote bag! I have no idea why. Maybe I was one of the first people to redeem the card. I have no idea. But I did redeem it pretty early (at 1:20pm). And then I rushed to class. I did so much before class even began that it felt like another day once I got to school.
[Though the day was about macarons, I also took the time to gaze at the beautiful buildings of the city. I breathed in the New York atmosphere. And I took several photos. However, I shall save that for a future post. I think I’ll wake up early a couple of days and roam around Manhattan with my camera. I don’t appreciate the city’s infrastructure enough… And when I have a good number of photos, I will construct a little photo blogpost on this site :) Ah New York <3]
Now, about the actual macarons:
In the image to the right, I tried my best to remember which macaron came from which store and what flavor each was. I failed. There are two mistakes in the image. The bottom left one from Butterfield is rose lychee, not raspberry and the pink one of the right from Mille-Feuille is rose, not rose lychee. Also, I spelled raspberry wrong twice. Lol. My opinions on the macarons:
My favorites: Bisous ciao’s strawberry, Macaron Cafe’s raspberry (though the ganache was very seedy), and FC Chocolate’s salted caramel (the right amount of sweet) La Maison du Chocolat’s and Payard’s chocolate.
Macaron Parlour’s red velvet tasted pretty close to actual red velvet cake, though the filling was a bit too much for me to handle. I did not like Bosie Tea Parlor’s passion fruit, but that might just be because I didn’t like the taste of passion fruit. Mille-Feuille’s rose has a light, subtle taste to it. Quite interesting. I did not like Butterfield’s rose lychee though. Payard’s vanilla was good – not too sweet. On the other hand, Bouchon’s vanilla was a bit too sweet for my liking. La Maison du Chocolat’s chocolate macarons were good, but it was a lot of chocolate. (I ate another one and I take it back. It was fantastic. I had another salted caramel and it was way too sweet. Different days, different tastes.) Epicerie Boulud’s chocolate was also good. Mad-Mac’s chocolate was decent. The pistachio was better.
All in all, I had a wonderful time. I hope to do this again next year.
My Macaron Day’s worth of stuff is probably somewhere along the lines of $80. $80 in free stuff. That’s insane.
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