A meringue with nuts in it is called a "japonaise". If you search this, you will see many different recipes for a nutty meringue. All meringues are crunchy in the beginning but become moist when left out or filled, provided they are properly cooked in the beginning. I wouldn't worry about the texture as long as you use the meringues right away or store them properly (wrapped air tight and in a dry place - NO HUMIDITY).
Are you sure you want to use icing? The barbie cakes I have seen all have the skirt made from rolled marzipan, not from icing. The bodice can be a normal fabric top or dress (inedible, can be washed after the cake is eaten) or also molded from marzipan. I agree that it isn't as tasty as buttercream icing, but it surely makes a more beautiful skirt.
This recipe has 196 pictures, you can see different variations of the bodice.
If you insist on using icing, I would try to smear something sticky onto the doll first, for example honey or syrup in the softball stage, then apply the icing on the sticky layer. I haven't tried this myself (nor have I tried applying icing directly to plastic, so I don't know if it will hold).
On another note, don't forget to put the barbie's legs in a cut-off paper towel cylinder, so she doesn't get damaged when the cake is cut, and doesn't fall when pieces of the skirt are missing. Also, if you bake the layers in a guggelhupf pan, you don't have to cut a piece out of the middle, which is hard to get right.
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The secrets: (some are old wives tales, but hey, it's an old recipe)
Eggs: Room temperature (you don't put eggs in the fridge do you?) and not fresh
Contamination: Make sure everything you use to prepare the base is perfectly clean, especially no grease. Use boiling water to rinse everything first. Metal or glass bowls are best, as plastic is harder to get 100% clean. Also make sure no yolk gets into the egg whites
Beating: When eggs whites have gone firm, add the sugar a little at a time using a powerful beater machine going flat out. NZ'ers use their trusty but ancient Kenwood Chef with the glass bowl for ten minutes until the it looks like the Swiss Alps on a sunny day. You should not be able to feel the castor sugar when you squish some mix between your fingers. If they go dull you have over beaten. They will still work but will go extra soggy when cooked as the sugar runs out
Size: Height = radius, or a little less. A radius of less than 10cm means you won't get Pav, just meringue. You can experiment with baking paper rings to hold the mix into a perfect cake shape if fussy. I wouldn't bother though
Problems:
If truly stuck, go on a course http://www.creativetourism.co.nz/workshops_taste_pav.html
This is what they should look like