Pâtisserie E. Ladurée, commonly known as Ladurée (), is a French manufacturer and retailer of high-end pastries and candy, which was established in 1862. It is one of the world's best-known sellers of the double-decker macaron, 15,000 of which are sold every day. The company is a société par actions simplifiée (simplified joint stock corporation) and has its head office in Paris, France. Early years Louis Ernest Ladurée, a miller, founded a bakery in 1862 on the rue Royale, Paris. During the Paris Commune uprising of 1871, the bakery was burnt down. A pastry shop was built at the same location, and Jules Chéret was entrusted with the interior decoration. The chubby cherubs dressed as pastry cooks, painted by him on the ceiling, form the company's emblem. The interior of the premises were painted in the same celadon colour as the façade. Ladurée's rise to fame came in 1930 when his little cousin, Pierre Desfontaines, had the original idea of the double-decker, sticking two macaron shells together with a creamy ganache as filling. Queen Catherine de' Medici had brought the macaron to France from Italy in the 16th century, and the recipe for the biscuit had hardly varied over the years, but the amounts of the ingredients used and the appearance of the end product were up to the individual bakers. French pastry chef Pierre Hermé helped orchestrate the expansion of Ladurée: "In one year Ladurée went from a little bakery in the eighth district of Paris to a big brand name. When I arrived, there was not a lot of organization. I really brought the savoir-faire to the company. When I arrived, they didn't have a logo." Recent history In 1993, Groupe Holder took over Ladurée. The Holder family also owns the PAUL bakery chain in France. Following the takeover, the company began an expansion drive to turn Ladurée from the single rue Royale bakery into a chain, setting up pastry shops and tea rooms on the Champs-Élysées and in Le Printemps Haussmann in 1997, followed by Ladurée Bonaparte in 2002. The international development of Ladurée started in 2005 with London, in the Harrods department store. In 1997, two shops opened in Paris – the first on the Champs-Élysées, next to its tea room, decorated by Jacques Garcia, and the second in the rue Bonaparte, decorated by Roxane Rodriguez. A shop opened in 2006 in London, also decorated by