IC pads soldered together
Yes there is probably too much solder paste on the PCB.  That is one thing that could be an issue.  Have you tried removing some of the solder paste with solder wick?  This way you will probably remove most of the solder paste of in between IC pins.  If one of the IC pin comes out to be open and not connected to the pad, you will need to solder it back again.  

For this reason, I like to use a method called "drag soldering" to solder my ICs to a printed circuit board.  I make sure I put plenty of flux on the PCB and by using a small amount of solder, I can simply drag it along to form the solder joints.  

This is only applicable if you have TQFP type of packages since the pins are accessible.  QFN packages will make it impossible to re-solder if there is a mistake.  So consider the amount of solder paste you are using initially as a big indicator of whether or not you will create shorts between pins.