Visions of macarons dance on Sucré’s festive trees

Really, it’s okay to touch.

Sucré’s mouthwatering macaron tree is a festive favorite that you might spy around town this holiday season. A light tug on one of the bite-size cookies releases it from its buttercream “glue,” rewarding the confident partygoer with a delicate sweet known for a crisp exterior and tender middle.

It’s only fitting that Sucré fashioned its staple centerpiece from the macaron, its iconic top seller.

“The macaron is the heart and soul of our brand,” owner Abney Harper says. “It makes up probably 60% of our sales. They’re delicious, and they’re just really special.”

Harper owns Sucré locations in New Orleans and Covington and opened the Baton Rouge store last November. Customers file into the Corporate Boulevard bakery for a variety of European-style pastries, including entremets, palmiers and elegantly decorated cupcakes, as well as gelato and espresso drinks. During Carnival season, Sucré sells cinnamon cream cheese king cakes made with airy Danish pastry dough and decorated with edible glitter.

But the macaron is its biggest draw. Fans choose from eight year-round flavors: strawberry, chocolate, pistachio, almond, vanilla bean, café au lait, salted caramel and blackberry citrus. Seasonal flavors, like this month’s peppermint fudge and, soon, king cake are welcome surprises throughout the year.

Macaron trees are customizable by size, flavor and arrangement, with anywhere from about 30 to 300 cookies fixed to the tree either facing out or positioned sideways so that you can reach in and “pinch” them off, Harper says.

From the time Sucré first opened in uptown New Orleans in 2007, macarons have been its calling card. Harper says the recipe, developed by the patisserie’s previous owners, is “foolproof and beautiful.”

“The making of a macaron is a very time-consuming process, and we pride ourselves on the consistency and beauty of ours,” she says.

Italian meringue is folded into almond flour batter to make the shells. Between each baked shell lies a carefully applied layer of filling, which might be ganache, gelée or both. The recipe calls for finished macarons to take a turn in the freezer to ensure they’re properly hydrated. The process results in a cookie that has just the right consistency, Harper says.

“It’s got to have that initial crunch on the outside, that soft chewiness on the inside and the right proportion of filling,” she says. “You want it to have layers of texture and flavor.”

And though the trees signal Christmas firs this time of year, they, too, are offered year-round. The elegant table-toppers are sometimes chosen by brides in place of wedding cakes.

Beauty aside, don’t be shy. They’re meant to be eaten.

This article was originally published in the December 2025 issue of 225 Magazine.