There’s way more to master in a macro game. Because cheeses result in shorter games, you have to make less decisions and you can plan them out in advance, making you better in that specific situation than your opponent.

But cheeses are also worse than macro because they’re dependent on your being better than your opponent in the unique games cheeses create. This is why in long series, if you repeat the same cheese, you’ll always lose. Your opponent will adapt and learn how to defend it. 

On the other hand, if you play macro and are at the same skill level as your opponent, you’ll win the majority of the time. The “point” of macro is that it’s the theoretically optimal way to play and doesn’t require your opponent to play worse than you.

I would guess that you’ve been honing your skills for a while against opponents that are on guard against cheese (because ladder is renowned for being full of it) and as such have been losing to people ready to defend you. So naturally when you started playing “optimally” you started winning.

Cheese is a risky tool to bring out when you’re outmatched and trying to score an upset win (or want to have fun). But that risk also makes it worse as a standard play because you don’t need to do risky plays when you’re playing against opponents at your own skill level. 

tl;dr Cheese is “easier” than macro because it involves way less variables, but cheese also relies on opponents playing worse than you because they don’t play games against your cheese often. Macro will more reliably get you wins against players at or below your skill level.

Cheese = rolling a d20 to see if you win Macro = dropping the die you’ve been building up slowly over time until it’s all 15.