Vegan Sugarfree Macaroons

My curiosity recently has led me to trying to create a recipe of a vegan macaroon - something I was dreaming about for quite a while (but only dreaming - it's impossible to recreate their meringue-ness without eggs), because meringues and macaroons/macarons are my biggest weakness and the absolutely only thing which prevents me from forgetting about non-vegan foods completely. I can (and I did) give up everything without any regret or looking back  - except meringues. ) However, I eat them very rarely, 1-2 times a year, perhaps... although they're on my mind at least 365 times a year.
Anyway, I was wondering whether such different foods as macarons/macaroons and macaroni (a.k.a. pasta) have something in common apart from similar names, and why coconut macaroons being so distinct from the French macaroons, are still called the same. I googled, and I found more than I could imagine. I found this amazing article Macaroons, Macarons, and Macaroni on the blog called The Language of Food, and I plan to read it all through when I have time.
I liked the fact that coconut macaroons are not a recent invention by vegan people, trying to create some substitute to the French macaroons, as I thought - coconut macaroons were invented in the end of the 19th century in America, when coconut was a fad at the time, so people just substituted ground almond with grated coconut in the recipe for macaroons. So, coconut macaroons are their own things, not just a sad alternative to the French macaron, and easily can be vegan and sugar-free. 
There are too many interesting things in the article to talk about, but when I came across the first English language recipe of macaroons, written in 1611, using ground almond, rose water, sugar and muske (? probably musk), I thought: "Wow: no eggs, actually, and still a macaroon!", and went to the kitchen immediately :)
I don't use sugar, but rice syrup is even better, because there's no need then to make a syrup with sugar and rose water. So I put together the ingredients listed below.

Vegan Sugarfree Macaroons 

Makes 18-20 biscuits
Ingredients:
200g of ground almonds
1/3 cup rice syrup
1/2 tsp rose water extract (I use Uncle Roy's)
1 Tbsp rice milk
3 Tbsp powdered soy milk
1 tsp baking powder

Method:
Measure the almond meal, put it in a medium bowl, mix with the baking powder. Add rice syrup, rose water extract (or 1 Tbsp rose water - and then omit the rice milk), rice milk and powdered soy milk, and mix everything with a spoon. You can use your hands later. When your paste looks incorporated, wet your hands, pinch a small piece off it and form a walnut-sized ball, then flatten it and place on a baking tray, lined with parchment paper. They spread just a little bit, so 2 cm between them on a tray should be enough.
Bake at 170C for 10 minutes. I use non-convection oven.

I would use a regular rose water, but I ran out of it, so I used the rose extract. The paste was a bit too wet after I've put the rice milk, so I added powdered soy milk, so next time I'll try without and see what happens.

They're came out so beautiful, a bit puffier than on the picture (sadly, they flatten as they cool down). Maybe a tiny bit darker than "proper" macarons, so next time I'll bake them for couple of minutes less.
They tasted really good. Not as airy and gooey as the Parisian macarons, of course, but very close. At least, for not only eggless  but also sugarless - probably the closest possible, who knows? They also had lovely cracked tops, looking just like Russian almond meringue biscuit called pechenie orekhovoe, and I loved that fact.

They looked lovely as they were, but I decided to make them even more macaroony and paired them together with my kinda perfect vegan coconut icing, colouring it with a pinch of beetroot powder. Voilà :)