Preheat oven to 325 degrees

Using a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and cream of tartar

Using a standing mixer, cream together the butter, powder sugar, vanilla, and egg.

Mix until combined and creamy

Gradually mix in the flour mixture until combined

Lightly flour a cutting board and knead the dough just a few times until all the flour is combined

Lightly flour the cutting board again and roll out the dough to 2-inch thickness

Cut out heart cookies and place onto the cookie sheet

Bake cookies for 7-9 minutes or until lightly golden brown

Let cookies cool for a few minutes before placing them onto another cookie sheet.

Leave about 2-inch space between cookies

Using a standing mixer, mix together the egg whites, powder sugar, almond extract and cream of tartar until combined

If your royal icing mixture looks like a yellow soup, add in another cup of powder sugar (max 2 cups) until your icing starts to thicken

Continue to mix until white and stiff with peaks. About 5-7 minutes

Split the icing into 4 bowls

Add pink gel coloring into one bowl, red gel into a second bowl, black gel into the third bowl and leave the fourth bowl white

Mix all the colors in their own bowls until combined

Add in a few more drops of coloring to get the shades you want

Scoop a little bit of each color into their own piping bag

Add 1-2 tsp of water into the pink, red and black mixing bowls to thin the icing

Pour icing into the squeeze bottles and set aside

Decorating directions

Using the black piping bag, pipe an outline around the top half of the cookie, this will be the ears on the cookies

Using either the pink or red piping bag and pipe the bottom half outline on the cookie.

Split cookie up in half so that you have some with hearts for Minnie and some for Mickey

Fill in the black outline with the thinned black icing

Repeat the step with the thinned pink and red icing

Using the white piping bag, pipe polka dots in the pink icing

Let cookie dry for 2 hours

Using the white piping bag, pipe on Mickey’s buttons on his pants

Let cookies dry again for another hour before eating.

If you plan on individually bagging these cookies for Valentine's day, let cookies completely dry overnight.