Easter marshmallows

I'd been thinking of making some lemon, strawberry and coconut marshmallows for Easter, and I then I saw Martha Stewart's little peeps. They're so stinking cute! I had to try them, though I figured I'd just go for the bunnies, the chicks looked too hard.

The first batch I used the Martha Stewart marshmallows for piping recipe except I subbed lemon juice for the water used for the bloom. They tasted great, though a little soft so they flattened out into little Easter trilobites.

In the second batch, I was trying Talanian's strawberry recipe, which uses strawberry puree for both the bloom and syrup, but I guess I got impatient and went too high on the heat because I scorched the syrup. So I improvised and used nightscotman's recipe on egullet (an adaptation of a Martha Stewart recipe) with a couple small changes.
Make the bloom:
1/2 c strawberry puree
2 pkg gelatin

Make the syrup:
1/2 c Talanian's mm syrup
1TB corn syrup
3/4 c water
1 1/2c sugar
pinch salt
Bring the syrup to 240, blend for 8 min. Transfer to piping bag or pan. Dust with potato starch/confectioners sugar.

In piping, I made the body bigger, which I think made them look a little more bunny-like. The mm held up really well this time. Then cocoa powder and water paste and a toothpick for the eyes and nose.

For the coconut I used Talanian's recipe which recommends blending 12 min. They were getting really stiff, so I ended at 9 min. They were pretty firm, but I was happy with how well the rolling in the toasted coconut worked.