Hi,
Please refer to both articles below:
ESA FAQ: How do you whitelist recipient or sender emails?
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/email-security-appliance/117913-configure-esa-00.html
And
How do you Whitelist a Trusted Sender?
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/security/email-security-appliance/118585-qa-esa-00.html
Please consider using tracing tool and logs to validate the configuration before making it to productions.
Let us know if that helps, please.
Regards,
Valter