These days, I no longer just use a tube of colour for one shade of macaron. A shade of pink is a mix and match of 2-3 other colours together, and I don't mean just white and red. Although in colour term, white and red produces pink, but when it comes to air dry clay (and depending on what clay you're using), white means a totally different thing. I mix colours into the air dry clay until I find the right shade of pink. The tough part about this is, if I knead it too much and the clay becomes dry, I can't use it anymore and would have to trash it.
Just the other day, I was looking at some macaron pictures in a book I found, and I just had to get those muted shades. The challenge with those muted shades is that you can't achieve them by just adding a main colour and white. All of the shades achieved here, were a combination of several colours together. Even a little dab of each does make a difference.
And guess what, by the time I found the right combination, I don't remember how much of each and what I've added, because I have tubes of paint lying around. LoL.
The below photo is an illustration of that experiment. I'm happy with these muted soft shades.
Alot of work just to get those colours right, but the end results were worth it :)