BATON ROUGE — While Sunday is National Macaroon Day, WBRZ spoke with bakers from Les Amis Bake Shoppe in Baton Rouge to discuss a completely different dessert with a nearly identical name, macarons.

Customers have the ability to customize their dessert orders, with the bakery offering several unique flavors like fruity pebbles, lavender and chocolate orange alongside traditional flavors like strawberry and vanilla bean. 

"With the process of making macarons, it's very precise, so there's not a lot of creativity when making the batter," said Jai Calhoun, the main macaron baker at Les Amis. "But then, when it comes to the colors, it really opens the door to have the filling and the flavor be whatever you can possibly imagine and whatever pairs well together.

The treats have gained popularity in the last few years, leading to an increase in demand. 

"We bake seven to eight batches a day, and it consists of two to three different flavors of macarons, so we're constantly producing different flavors and really just pushing them out the door as fast as we possibly can."

Presentation is a very important part of the appeal of the dessert, with customers able to decorate the outside of the treats in several different ways, including a gold splatter.

"When you are going for a macaron compared to other desserts, because they're so colorful, that's kind of what draws you to them," Calhoun said. "It kind of draws your eye to it, and the flavor is what gets you to stay around."

Customers should also keep an eye out for the summer seasonal flavors, which include a bomb pop macaron that has blue raspberry and cherry, and a stars and stripes flavor, which has a berry chantilly flavor.

The bakery recently opened its new downtown location inside II City Plaza on 400 Convention Street.