Velvet, Glitterballs - No It's Not Strictly

I photographed some insect eggs that I found on the ivy outside my back door yesterday. They were so beautiful, my daughter said they looked like sea urchin shells. They were a similar pinkish mauve colour and, catching the bright sunlight beautifully, looked like glitterballs to me. I posted them on Twitter in the hope that someone could identify them but no luck. :(

It has been dull today but when I checked many of them have hatched. I think the velvet mite, an arachnid but not a spider, is gobbling either the eggs or the newly hatched caterpillars. They normally scurry about but it seemed preoccupied.