It kind of depends on what the AAPT error is (you can see it in the Output panel when changing the build settings as above). Compiling doesn’t actually talk to the emulator, only running does (pressing f5/play) and yes, sometimes if the emulator takes too long to start it will timeout, then you can just wait till it’s started and retry.
If you want to make android debugging faster (the emulator is REALLY slow), have a look at Making Android debugging faster