When making Swiss or Italian Meringue Buttercream, I know that you have to beat the egg white mixer until it is no longer hot or the bowl becomes cool to the touch. Everyone I know, and all the you tube videos I've seen, all take under 7 minutes to cool. Every time I make Meringue it takes me a good 15-20 minutes (sometime longer). Does anyone else have this experience? Or does anyone know why it may take me so long? 

Don't sweat it.  I sometimes put my bowl on the KA and leave the room and go do something else for a bit.  The least amount of time that I probably let it run is 15 mins.  You could be heating it to a higher temp, your house could be warmer, etc. who knows?

If you want to shorten the time, you can transfer the mixture into another bowl before you put it on the KA.  That will cool it down a little quicker.

In other words, as long as your end result is good, you're not doing anything wrong.

Okay thank you! I do believe it has something to do with the temperature of my kitchen. I just hate that it takes soooo long to cool down. Sometimes it feels like my KA wants to burn out from the heat and hard work.

Just turn your mixer to about half speed and turn on the timer for 5 minutes.  Then check the temp of your whites & turn the speed up to high and finish the beating.  I've been doing it this way for a year now and it beats up just fine, and cools down just fine, with the exact same results.  As @Jinkies ‍ suggested, very wise, just cook your eggs in a separate pan to minimize the mixing bowl heat.

I pop my KA bowl in the fridge for 10-15 minutes before putting the meringue mixture in.  It only takes 7-10 minutes at high speed to whip up then. 

I only work with small amounts (1c sugar 4 egg whites 360gm butter)  but I never wait or my egg whites to be cool. I beat them up as soon as I pull them off the stove then add the butter which I have had at room temperature since the night before so that it is super soft.

I add my butter all at once then beat on low, moving to medium speed until it is done. I have also never had that 'curdled look' SMBC stage when making it, not sure if the way I do it has anything to do with it.

I use a hand beater with whisk to get the stiff peaks then throw on my beaters and two or three minutes later I am done :-)

If I don't have time to let it cool (I use Italian Meringue and it definitely takes longer than that for me too, especially in the big (60 qt) mixer). I add chunks of cold butter until it warms up then usually finish with softened butter. Basically I just probe the meringue and the butter and try to meet in the middle. It's possible I loose a little volume, but since I usually "break" the buttercream when I'm warming it from the cooler later (I try to be really conservative on food safety time and temp), I figure whatevs. Life is short.

Thanks for all your help and advice!!  I will definitely be trying some new tactics the next go round. I like the idea of freezing my bowl, then transferring the whites to the cooled bowl for mixing. @bubs1stbirthday this is the first time i'm ever hearing of someone leaving the butter out overnight and mixing the whites right away. But I can definitely see how that could also work. Italian Meringue is more difficult than Swiss!

Again Thank you guys, Cake Central never steers you wrong!