Start by mixing half of the almond flour and half of the powdered sugar. Use the 2nd half of the almond flour and powdered for a 2nd batch with a 2nd color later.

Sift the ingredients together through a fine mesh sieve at least 3 to 4 times. Although you can sift the mixture just 1 or 2 times, it may be hard to remove all the largest pieces of almond. And, the finer your mixture, the better your 4th of July macarons will be! This step will help them be more uniform, lighter, and bake evenly. Although this step isn't  is the hardest step it will take the most time.

Once the ingredients are sifted, set the mixture aside.

In a large bowl, beat half of the egg whites (2 ounces) with 1/2 tsp salt on low.

As foamy bubbles appear, add the white sugar and continue beating. Now raise the speed to medium.

Next add red food coloring. Continue to whip until the color is even and perfectly blended. Continue to whip the egg whites until it is stiff and sticks to your whisk.

Add the almond flour mixture slowly to the whipped egg whites. Gently fold in the almond flour mixture in a slow circular motion. Be gentle and don't overmix.

Once the batter is thoroughly mixed, fill in a pastry bag or squeeze tube and pipe them onto a macaron sheet. If you don't have a macaron sheet, cover a regular cookie sheet with parchment. For an extra touch, draw 1.5 inch circles on the parchment sheet and fill the circles perfectly with macaron batter.

Do not bake the macarons until the outside of the cookie dries forming a shell coating. Otherwise, the top of the cookie will break while baking. This process can take 30 minutes on a sunny day, or even up to 2 to 3 days with wet, dark and cold weather.

Alternative: If you are in a cold and wet environment, you can dry your cookies and get them ready to bake. Place them in an oven approximately 85°F for 30 minutes. Touch the shells. If they don't stick to your fingers, they're ready to bake.

Without removing them, heat your oven to 300°F and bake for around 13 minutes. It could take between 11-15 minutes, so carefully watch the cookies to crisp and for the tops to lightly brown.

Take them out of the oven and let them cool completely before removing them from the parchment.

Repeat these steps with the 2nd half of the ingredients. But this time replace the red food coloring with blue. Everything else will be the same.

Let the cookies rest for 24 hours.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the softened butter until smooth.

Beat in the powdered sugar 1/3 cup at a time. Continue to beat until smooth.

Add the whipping cream and beat until evenly blended.

Add the buttercream frosting to a pastry bag with any piping nozzle you prefer. If you prefer, you can spoon the buttercream onto the macarons - just be gentle and very careful. Press a red cookie and blue cookie together, sandwiching the buttercream in the center.

Store in the fridge in an air tight container for up to a few days.