Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray a cupcake tin with cooking spray.
Roll out pie dough. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out hearts from the dough. Place 4 hearts in each cup of the tin. Place the heart tops facing upwards, overlapping about half of each heart so that you cover the entire bottom and top of the cup. Apply gentle pressure to the bottom of each heart to ensure that the outer petals will stay together. Once finished, sprinkle each with a bit of the cinnamon sugar mixture.
Use a mandolin slicer to thinly slice apples. Cut slices in half with a knife.
Place apple slices in a medium-size bowl. Add lemon juice and remaining cinnamon sugar mixture. Toss well to evenly coat apples. Let sit for about 10 minutes to let the apples soften.*
On a thin strip of parchment paper, arrange 10-12 apple slices lengthwise in a straight line, making sure each apple slice overlaps the next by about a 1/3-1/2 inch.
Starting with the end closest to you, tightly roll the apple slices. Place apple rose inside of a prepared mini pie shell. Repeat until you have a rose center for each mini pie shell in your cupcake tin. Sprinkle each rose with sugar.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until the pie crust is golden brown.
Remove from oven and let cool for about 30 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to continue cooling.
Notes
*If your apples do not soften enough to work with and do not want to bend when rolling them into rose shapes, heat them in the microwave for 30-45 seconds.