Maximum MTU size

Thought one of the issues I'm experiencing with the following question is due to MTU rightfully so.
ESXi 5 VM Putty session hangs, vSphere client timing out

However, when I tried testing the maximum MTU size it seems there's just no limit. Thought Ethernet only allows maximum MTU. But I'm up to 54450.
ping -l 54450 192.168.10.7

Pinging 192.168.50.7 with 54450 bytes of data:
Reply from 192.168.10.7: bytes=54450 time=1081ms TTL=62
Reply from 192.168.10.7: bytes=54450 time=1079ms TTL=62
Reply from 192.168.10.7: bytes=54450 time=1079ms TTL=62
Reply from 192.168.10.7: bytes=54450 time=1079ms TTL=62

Ping statistics for 192.168.10.7:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 1079ms, Maximum = 1081ms, Average = 1079ms

You need to specify the -f switch so that the packets will not be fragmented.