When using IFTTT I’ve always had better luck using the Webhooks trigger rather than the Particle trigger. This allows me to create a Particle webhook that calls the endpoint on the IFTTT REST API which provides a much faster response than waiting for IFTTT to collect the events.
To implement this you would need to create a new integration on the Particle console and recreate your applets on IFTTT, but you wouldn’t need to change the firmware on your device.