• ▢
  Heat the milk until it's lukewarm.
• ▢
  Dissolve the yeast in the milk. Add the sugar, salt, cardamom, vanilla sugar, egg, and 2/3 of the flour. Mix the dough well (you can do this with a wooden spoon by hand or in a mixer).
• ▢
  Stir in the softened butter and gradually add the rest of the flour, while mixing. When the dough starts to release from the bowl take it out and continue to knead it until it's elastic - about 5 minutes. Add more flour if the dough is too sticky to knead, but don't add more than necessary.
• ▢
  Return the dough to the bowl and cover. Let the dough rise until it's double in size - about 30 minutes.
• ▢
  Roll the dough into a cylinder and cut into about 16 pieces. Roll them into balls and set on a baking tray. Cover with plastic and let them rise for another 30 minutes.
• ▢
  Preheat oven to 420°F (215°C). Brush the top of the buns with whisked egg. Bake the buns in the middle of the oven (one pan at a time) for about 12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Almond filling

• ▢
  Run the almonds and sugar in a food processor for several minutes, until getting the consistency of soft marzipan. It should hold shape when you press it together.
• ▢
  Cut off the top of the buns. Dig out a bit of the inside of each bun, so that there's a hole in the middle. Add what you dig out to the almond mixture, breaking it into small bits.
• ▢
  Add the milk (or cream) to the almond mixture, stirring well so that you get a soft consistency. You can add more milk if necessary.
• ▢
  Fill the inside of each bun with the almond mixture.

Assembly

• ▢
  Whip the cream with the vanilla sugar and add it to the top of each bun. You can use a spoon or a piping bag to add the cream.
• ▢
  Add the top of the bun back on top of the cream. If you want, you can use a heart shape cookie cutter to cut a heart out of the bun tops. Or you can use scissors to cut other shapes, or simply to clean up the circle shape.
• ▢
  Top with powdered sugar and serve immediately.