We study the structure and production of deeply bound pionic atoms in heavy nuclei, which are found quasi‐stable due to the repulsive pion‐nucleus optical potential and the attractive Coulomb potential. The bound pion forms a pionic halo just outside of nucleus. We discuss then the use of pion transfer reactions such as (n,p) and (d, 2He) to form these states. In addition, we study other processes such as (n,d) and (d, 3He) and the use of the inverse kinematics for formation of deeply bound pionic atoms.