Steps

• To prepare these very sweet love cookies, heap the flour in a well on the work surface, add the sugar, cold butter cut into pieces, the salt, the grated lemon zest and the vanilla seeds or extract.

  Quickly work everything together until you get a sandy mixture, then add the whole egg and the yolks. Work the dough quickly until smooth and homogeneous.

• Take one third of the dough and add 1 teaspoon of gel food coloring (or more if you want a more intense color). Work it, compact it and wrap it in plastic wrap and place it in the fridge for 30 minutes.

  Do the same with the white shortcrust pastry.

• After the resting time, take the two doughs and roll them to a thickness of 5 mm (about 3/16 in).

  With the white pastry, use a round cutter to make many circles. With a smaller heart-shaped cutter, cut out the center of each circle.

  Roll out the red dough, cut out the little hearts and insert them inside the white pastry circles.

  

• Continue like this until the doughs are used up, or with the white and red hearts you can make other little cookies by stacking them and gluing each one with a drop of water.

  Once the cookies are arranged on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, bake in a preheated conventional oven at 356°F (180°C) for 15 minutes.

  Remove the cookies from the oven and let them cool completely.

  Happy Valentine’s Day to all lovers.