I can't seem to get my royal icing to go right. I follow the recipe and nothing seems to work. It is ok for the first couple minutes then it goes soft. I make sure my equipment is clean and free of any type of shortening. I have tried and tried but it still goes soft. Am I not mixing it enough or what. I made some yesterday and the white was fine, but I needed to make some flowers so I colored some with paste color and after I got it mixed it started to go soft. Please someone help me lol thank you

If your white is fine try using less liquid so that when you color it it won't thin out.

I mix mine for at the very least 7 minutes, this usually gives me a "marshmellow" consistency and then as long as I don't keep it in my hand tooo long it doesn't get soft. I do notice if I have a lot of pieces to make the longer I hold the bag the quicker the icing gets soft and then I just usually start over with a different bag. HTH