Julien Haler/Flickr

There was a point, sometime in the early 2000s, when cupcakes made the transition from a dessert to the dessert. No one is quite sure how it happened, or when, exactly—these things are difficult to track with accuracy—but it had something to do with the slowing of the economy and the rising of Magnolia Bakery, with the continued ascendance of gendered foods and the sudden influence of Sex and the City and Americans' collective devotion to reality television and their collective frustration with the Atkins diet. The simple, decorative treat—a highly adaptable combination of cake and frosting, presented in a single-serving if not a bite-sized form—was, suddenly, everywhere. And then it followed the trajectory that all trends will, in the end: innovation to ubiquity to cliche.

The descent was quick. Crumbs, the cupcake-only chain, closed. The obituaries for the cupcake-as-the-dessert came rolling in. And, in short order—food trends, like nature itself, abhorring a vacuum—a successor was sought. Would America's next Default Dessert be the pie? Would it be the whoopie pie? Would it be the donut? Would it be—oh, but please let it not be—the cronut?

We now have our answer. And it is an answer that has been with us, as answers so often are, the whole time. The new cupcake is a cookie—one that, as of mid-July 2014, had been dubbed "the new cupcake" more than 70 times, thus beating out, among many other contenders, the pie, the popsicle, the donut, the marshmallow, and, fortunately, the cronut. The new cupcake is the macaron.

Macarons—the cousins of macaroons, the lumpy, coconut-based affairs—are airy where cupcakes are dense, dainty where cupcakes are messy, fancy where cupcakes are homey. They are beautiful and haughty and ethereal. They are high-maintenance, and have managed to make that part of their appeal. They are the Gwyneth Paltrow of desserts, basically.

And the cookies—two meringue-based layers, consciously coupled with some jam or cream or ganache in the middle—have become ubiquitous. Whether resembling "psychedelic Oreos" or "whoopie pies on acid," they seem to be, both gradually and suddenly, everywhere. You can find macarons not just in boutiques and upscale bakery chains across the country, lined up in neat pastel rainbows or arranged in the traditional conic pyramid; you can also find them in the freezer aisles of Trader Joe's. (You can currently find them, food trends being what they are, in pumpkin spice versions.) And you buy them in the bakery at Whole Foods, which has offered fresh macarons as part of its cookie and pastry selection for the past several years.

If you buy them, you will be in good company. Whole Foods, Catherine Trujillo, part of the chain's global bakery team, told me, has seen a 40-percent growth in their sales of macarons over the past year alone.

"They are the perfect little indulgence," Trujillo explains. They are also one of the few desserts that are, in their original form, gluten-free. The classic macaron recipe involves almond flour, egg, sugar, air…and, save for (optional) additional flavorings, very little else. ("Macaron," "macaroon," and "macaroni" all come from the same root, the Italian maccherone, or "fine paste"; the macaron is named for the nut flour that gives the cookie what little heft it has.) "I believe it to be the perfect treat," Thomas Vaccaro, the dean of baking and pastry arts at the Culinary Institute of America, told me. "It offers opportunities to add a lot of flavor combinations that are unusual." On top of which, he adds, "it offers great texture when you eat it; it's crunchy and chewy at the same time."

* * *

Macarons, like the croissants and eclairs that took "trendy pastry" honors before them, are distinctly European—distinctly French, really—in their affect. The cookies were born in Italy, but made their way to France in the 1530s—by way of, some scholars believe, Catherine di Medici. They wouldn't become widespread outside of court, however, until 1792, when two Benedictine nuns, seeking asylum during the French Revolution, supported themselves by baking and selling treats made of ground almonds, egg whites, and sugar. The ad hoc pastry chefs came to be known as "the macaron sisters."

Their recipe was passed down in secret until, in the early 1900s, Ladurée, a Parisian bakery and tea salon, adapted a meringue-based version as a sweet accompaniment to its tea service. In the 1980s, Fauchon, the upscale Parisian patisserie, began offering inventive spins on the classic flavors of vanilla, chocolate, coffee, and raspberry—including rose and olive oil. It also initiated a "macaron of the month" program. In the 1990s, Ladurée followed suit, releasing flavors seasonally, in the manner of clothing collections. (Ladurée's spring 2009 flavor was Lily-of-the-Valley.) The bakery, having opened its flagship location on the Champs-Élysées, also began advertising in the French versions of Vogue and Elle, alongside makeup and jewelry and handbags.

So haute couture met haute cuisine. Which meant that, per the thermodynamic forces of fashion, the next step for macarons would be the mass market. In 2007, McDonald’s stores in France began selling inexpensive versions of the cookies. Harrod’s in London opened a stall dedicated to macarons. In the U.S., Starbucks began selling limited-edition versions of the cookies (in response to which, Fauchon released a wry new flavor: ketchup, with pickle). Today you can find macaron shops, many of them under the original Ladurée brand, in England, Japan, Monaco, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.