frozen macarons from Trader Joe's

I've noticed frozen macarons available lately at both Costco and Trader Joe's.  Given the time and energy I've spent learning the fine art of macaron-ing lately, I'm partly appalled at the idea of assembly line, mass-produced macarons, partly bummed that my skills may now be obsolete, and partly surprised at how cheap they are.  (about $4 for a pack of 12 at Trader Joe's).

Trader Joe's offers 6 vanilla's and 6 chocolates, so it still lacks the more interesting flavors.

If these frozen macarons are any good, it could replace this whole set of supplies.

I just tried one of each.  The vanilla has pretty good flavor, but was way too mushy.  The chocolate had a much chewier texture and was closer to what I've made before and was pretty good (especially good if you like dark chocolate).

In conclusion, these are pretty decent.  They are easily better than the Miette macarons I've had.  (Note that they're also stored properly so that the macarons don't crush either.  Something that Miette hasn't seemed to learn yet.)