Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

Beat in eggs and vanilla extract.

Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Pat the ball of dough into a flat disc, wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least one hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Roll out dough until 1/2 - 1cm thick. I like to roll between 2 sheets of baking paper so that the dough doesn't stick, and no additional flour is incorporated into the dough.

Cut into heart shapes using your cookie cutters.

Place cookies 3cm apart on cookie sheets lining with baking paper.

Bake for around 8 minutes until lightly golden.

Allow to cool completely before icing.

Lightly whisk egg whites and lemon juice together in a bowl.

Gradually add in icing sugar, whisking until combined and silky smooth.

Divide the royal icing into 5 small bowls.

Add a few drops of your selected food dye to each bowl and stir until the desired colour is achieved.

Transfer about 2 tbsp of the first colour into a zip lock bag with the corner snipped off.

Pipe outlines around the edges of your cookies. Repeat this with all the colours, until each heart is outlined. Allow to set (by the time I finished the final outlines, the first cookies I piped were already set).

Now we need to thin the icing to fill the cookies. Add 1/2 tsp of water to each bowl and stir until the icing runs smoothly off the back of a spoon.

Carefully fill each cookie up to the outline. Allow to set for at least an hour.

Select your favourite decorating pen and pipe your chosen lyrics onto the cookies.

Give to your bae!