Making macarons, an art?

I've created a to-do list for this summer, and it includes things like reading Les Miserables, playing Jon Schmidt songs on the piano, and learning how to cook more of my mom's food. The most challenging of my list is probably making French macarons. I miss the macarons from Laduree that my cousin Cathy introduced me to in London so much, that I decided it was time for me to make pseudo-Laduree macarons. My first trial was today, and I tried making chocolate macarons. I burnt half the batch, and cracked a few. However, the ones that did survive, had the perfect shine on the top, and had feet at the bottom. The texture was light and crisp on the outside, and chewy on the inside. I filled them with my mom's homemade strawberry jam. There are so many different factors that can affect them. Temperature too high-cracked tops, temperature too low-air bubbles, overmixing-cracked flat and discolored, undermix-runny.

Trial 2 occurs tomorrow! I think I'm going to try to make matcha green tea macarons instead of chocolate. After perfecting the shell, I need to learn to make good ganaches, creams, jams to fill them with!