diff --git a/pandas/tests/indexing/multiindex/conftest.py b/pandas/tests/indexing/multiindex/conftest.py
index 046fc19c0d9c8c..545e092d9ce651 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/indexing/multiindex/conftest.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/indexing/multiindex/conftest.py
@@ -21,8 +21,7 @@ def multiindex_dataframe_random_data():
 def multiindex_year_month_day_dataframe_random_data():
     """DataFrame with 3 level MultiIndex (year, month, day) covering
     first 100 business days from 2000-01-01 with random data"""
-    tm.N = 100
-    tdf = tm.makeTimeDataFrame()
+    tdf = tm.makeTimeDataFrame(100)
     ymd = tdf.groupby([lambda x: x.year, lambda x: x.month,
                        lambda x: x.day]).sum()
     # use Int64Index, to make sure things work
diff --git a/pandas/tests/plotting/test_datetimelike.py b/pandas/tests/plotting/test_datetimelike.py
index c78ab41d2fae4a..ad79cc97f8b778 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/plotting/test_datetimelike.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/plotting/test_datetimelike.py
@@ -313,10 +313,7 @@ def test_business_freq(self):
 
     @pytest.mark.slow
     def test_business_freq_convert(self):
-        n = tm.N
-        tm.N = 300
-        bts = tm.makeTimeSeries().asfreq('BM')
-        tm.N = n
+        bts = tm.makeTimeSeries(300).asfreq('BM')
         ts = bts.to_period('M')
         _, ax = self.plt.subplots()
         bts.plot(ax=ax)
diff --git a/pandas/tests/series/test_alter_axes.py b/pandas/tests/series/test_alter_axes.py
index cd4c0a7924d392..04c54bcf8c22cd 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/series/test_alter_axes.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/series/test_alter_axes.py
@@ -22,8 +22,8 @@ def test_setindex(self, string_series):
             string_series.index = None
 
         # wrong length
-        msg = (r"Length mismatch: Expected axis has (30|100) elements, new"
-               r" values have (29|99) elements")
+        msg = ("Length mismatch: Expected axis has 30 elements, new"
+               " values have 29 elements")
         with pytest.raises(ValueError, match=msg):
             string_series.index = np.arange(len(string_series) - 1)
 
diff --git a/pandas/tests/test_multilevel.py b/pandas/tests/test_multilevel.py
index b5023c376dedd5..a7bbbbb5033acb 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/test_multilevel.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/test_multilevel.py
@@ -47,8 +47,7 @@ def setup_method(self, method):
         s[3] = np.NaN
         self.series = s
 
-        tm.N = 100
-        self.tdf = tm.makeTimeDataFrame()
+        self.tdf = tm.makeTimeDataFrame(100)
         self.ymd = self.tdf.groupby([lambda x: x.year, lambda x: x.month,
                                      lambda x: x.day]).sum()