The male looks like C. maculata fuscilabris and the female like C. maculata lengi - hey, why should they care what taxonomists say about their relationship? Nice example of why subspecies are such inexact taxa!

I've never personally seen a male larger than the female he was mating with, and haven't noticed any on BG, although I have to confess I have not looked at every single image of every pair of mating lady beetles on here :-) Individual size can vary based on how well fed the larva was, or temperature, weather, and season, so a male larva that fattened up in warm sunny weather might become a larger adult than an underfed female in a cold, arid environment. Size w/in a species can vary in different regions, too. But most beetles in a given area at the same time will have developed under similar conditions and food availability, and all other things being equal, size does seem to be sex-linked.