I have a template with the following trigger:

{ping:icmppingsec.max({$PING_TOLERANCE})}=0.0

I defined {$PING_TOLERANCE} inside the template (but I also tried in the affected host).
I get a grey "?" in the latest 20 issues, and the message:
Evaluation failed for function: {HOSTNAME:icmppingsec.max({$PING_TOLERANCE})}
in dashboard and in Configuration->Hosts->triggers
According to the documentation (https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.2/manual/config/macros/usermacros 3rd example) it should be supported.