I’d say, don’t buy a cheap mixer. A cheap mixer won’t do very much, except frustrate the cook when it won’t deal with more than about a cup of any given mixture. A good big bowl and a wooden spoon beat any mixer, IMHO.
Watch garage sales or second-hand stores for a good hand mixer. I’ve had a couple of cheap ones and they were just mistakes. Useless cheap crap that burned out or failed to work.
See what Cook’s Illustrated has to say and go with their recommendation, that’s my advice, if you do decide to buy a mixer.
Go forth and colourise with my blessings and best wishes. I think it’s so freaking cool that I pass on the idea whenever I can (surprisingly rarely). IIRC, it only took a few drops of liquid colouring to get the desired effect, and the colour intensified after cooking. I can’t whip one up to check as my oven has cold spots and ruins pavs every time.
My grandma was the Great Queen of Pavlovas and I was part of making them often. It really takes a ridiculously small amount of coloring to color them.
If your oven has cold spots, then you can also make them as “forgotten cookies”. Heat the oven to 350, put them in, turn it off and leave them in there overnight (no peeking).
I made them. Flavor was great, a bit sweet for my taste but no such thing for the kids. The only trouble I had was that I totally messed up sizes and spacing so it more or less ended being one gigantic cookie. Again, no big deal for the kids. They loved measuring and spooning the stuff in the sheet. A fun time was had by all.
I used mini m&m’s. They melt and end up as weird color blotches. Will do real chocolate chips next time.
In any case. The “effort” of mixing by hand was about the same effort of scrambling an egg for an omelet. Nothing at all. I suspect homemade cookies will be a common event from now on.