Recursive get of outwardlinks doesn't get the second-level issues

[karagota]

I have a series of issues which are connected by issue link, each one is an iteration of a business-process. Suppose 3 issues: 1st iteration, 2nd iteration and 3rd iteration. I need to print out in a template for email the approvers of previous iterations of the 3rd issue. But the problem is that somehow only 2nd iteration is printed with the below chunk, and the 1st iteration does not print (when testing the email on the 3rd issue) while when testing on the 2nd issue (taking it as a last iteration) the 1st iteration prints, so the problem is not with non-matching field names or link types. Please help me clarify what to change in order to make this recursive macro work for every levels.

#macro(getPreviousIterations $issue)
  			
            #foreach ($linkType in $issue.linkCollection.linkTypes)
                #if ($linkType.outward.equals("is Next iteration of"))
                    #foreach ($outwardIssue in $issue.linkCollection.getOutwardIssues($linkType.name))
                        #printApprovers($outwardIssue)
 						#getPreviousIterations($outwardIssue) ##Doesn't find prev iterations for the immediate outwardissue of the top issue
                    #end
                #end 
            #end
        #end
  
        #if ($iCount !='1') 
            <p>Previous iterations of issue were additionally approved by the following people:</p>
 			#getPreviousIterations($issue)
        #end

[karagota]

This code is inside a template for an email, which is used by the plugin JETI https://www.meta-inf.hu/display/PLUG/Documentation;jsessionid=82109CB122D3A55E9C606BD72A4BDFB7

https://www.meta-inf.hu/display/PLUG/Add+Issue+Link+Information+to+Your+Template

The macro syntax I used was from Velocity documentation http://velocity.apache.org/engine/1.7/user-guide.html#velocimacros

I tested some behavior of the code and can report only that during the first call of the macro it works as intended, but then probably transmits to the next call not the whole issue object, so the foreach cycle doesn't envoke the second time.

[Steven Behnke]

I don't know the #macro syntax – Is this a custom plugin? Just double checking.

[karagota]

Yes, that's right.

[Steven Behnke]

Can you confirm, the structure looks something like this? 
image2017-1-29 12:36:35.png