These cookies are inspired by the cute little Valentine's I used to give out to my classmates when I was in Elementary school.

Like usual, I do not remember why I decided to make these, but I'm quite happy with the results.

* You may wonder why it looks like two different people took pictures for this Instructable. And that is because two different people did. Audrey came by and took most of the lovely pictures you see used in this Instructable. Thank you Audrey!

Step 1: Supplies

These are pretty basic. You mostly just need cookies, icing and something to decorate with. You can make it is simple or as complicated as you want.

Basics:

Cookie Dough
Frosting (I think this could be tasty with marshmallow fondant too)

Decorating: (I didn't use everything in the picture so I've listed everything I used. I wasn't sure at first so I just photographed everything I was considering using.)

Red Candy Melts
Pink Candy Melts
Black Candy Melts
White Pearl Sprinkles
Heart Sprinkles
White Glitter Sprinkles (used this a little)

Step 2: Cut and Bake Cookies

If you have a rectangle cookie cutter, you probably want to use it. If you don't, I don't either so it's okay!

Roll out your dough. Decide how big you are going to want your cookies to be. I used a little notepad piece of paper as a guide. I cut them to be around 2.5 inches by 4.5 inches and they baked up to about 3 by 5 inches.

Now, since I didn't have a cutter, I just used a pizza cutter.

So just cut and bake away!

I ended up with 15 cookies and a little dough left over that I ate. 2 of my cookies were a little smaller so I could have used the extra dough for them, but I like eating cookie dough better :) *

*I understand and acknowledge the dangers of eating food with raw eggs.

Step 3: Icing

Time to mix up your icing. I mixed up a double batch (from the link provided) and added maybe a teaspoon more sugar. I wanted it spreadable without making it too runny. Just add little bits of water at a time and see what you think. In the end, three batches of that icing was perfect for 15 cookies. I batch for every 5 cookies.

I used this Wilton decorating spatula to spread the icing on and it worked really nicely. You can probably just use a regular butter knife too.

Frost all the cookies and then give the icing time to dry. Try not to touch it, even when you think it's dry. It will mess up the smoothness of the icing.

(Don't they look like poptarts!)

Step 4: Decorate

Time to decorate!

I planned out some designs, for reference, ahead of time. You can see it in some of the later pictures. I just kind of winged it. Try to be realistic. If it is too complicated or too small, it will be harder to draw out in candy melts.

I started with a handful of red candy melts. When that melted batch ran out, I moved to a handful of pink, then back to red, then black and ended on pink. The first red I did started to harden in my piping baggie before I was done. So I just worked in small batches and switched back and forth with colors, cause I just didn't know what I was doing :)

Remember, the cookies don't have to go up and down, they can go side to side too!

Here are some tips from my decorating experience:

Have a plan, any plan is fine, even if it is just "I plan to do hearts"
Borders look nice. I did borders on some as I went and by the end I tried to border them all in some way. It doesn't mean you need a straight line all the way around. You can also do dots, just corners, or just sides. It just helps it feel complete and more like a Valentine.
If you use black, you probably won't need that much. I melted too much which is why you see black hearts, I just hate wasting.
If you are going to put something on the wet candy melts, do it right away, that stuff hardens fast! (Like how I put the pearl sprinkles on dots of candy melts.)
Don't think it needs to be complicated. I really like the one I did that is just a bunch of little hearts. Simple is sweet too!
If you know you are going to want works, leave room.
Don't think the words have to be in black.

(So, again, I went red, pink, red, black, and back to pink.)

I just did them all different for fun. You can do them all the same you want or half one way or half the other. It doesn't matter, it's your cookies and you should decorate them the way you want to.

Step 5: Just More Pictures of the Cookies

Eat them up!

Now, you may be thinking these are too big and too sugary for one (normal) person to eat. And you are probably right :) So find a friend or a sweetheart and share one of these Valentine Cookies :)