Nice plugin!

I wanted to use this with a shortcode, so I tied into the Display Posts Shortcode plugin by adding a filter to the shortcode args. I thought I’d share the code here. Use it by adding featured=’yes’ to your shortcode.

function fc_display_posts_shortcode_featured( $args, $atts ) {

	if( isset($atts['featured']) && ($atts['featured'] == 'yes') ) {
		$args['meta_key'] = Featured_Content::IS_FEATURED_CONTENT_KEY;
		$args['meta_value'] = 'yes';
	}

	return $args;
}
add_filter( 'display_posts_shortcode_args', 'fc_display_posts_shortcode_featured', 10, 2 );

https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/easy-featured-content/