What is the right equity percentage for a potential technical partner?

If all the CTO is doing is coding software that you came up with, designed, and made previous versions of, then yes 40% is too high, and 30% even may be a bit high, as the website you cited suggests. It depends largely on how indispensable he/she is. Do they have unique skills that are uniquely contributing to the project (other than the fact that they've been there for a while and know the product well by now). If not, then you could very well have freelance programmers do the work instead, using ODesk, elance, etc. To use freelancers effectively you can use the 'Code as Cards' system developed by Amol Sarva (link to free book: http://a.sarva.co/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2014-Dec-9-Ship-While-You-Sleep.pdf). I've worked with Mr. Sarva in the past (co-founded Halo Neuroscience with him), and the system works well once you get past the first 1-2 weeks and have stable, dependable programmers working for you. If you'd like to talk more about any of this I'd be happy to do a call.

Yeah for what you have mentioned it seems 30% is more than enough.
Now it is also important to keep in mind how important is technology going forward. If your business is totally tech dependent for example ad-tech or artitifical-intelligence then 40% is good. But if your business has considerable amount of offline work for example ecommerce, getting vendors and partners on platform then 30% is more than enough.
Finally if you are going to be CEO and other guy is CTO and he gels well with you and works with complete alignment of goal then you can consider giving him 40%. Its pretty hard to find awesome tech guys these days. And more than that if he realizes to work with you as per your plans then its very very helpful.
We can also chat in detail if you want.

Sometimes the best way to break a stalemate over equity is to agree on equal shares but give someone a faster schedule or some portion vested up front — or, conversely, agree to allocate a larger percentage but tie it to a longer vesting schedule and/or milestones. Shares aren't really "owned" until they're vested.

There's no hard and fast rule about vesting any more than there is about exact equity percentages, yet entrepreneurs often assume everyone's shares must vest according to the same schedule. Instead, I recommend taking a hard look at past, present, and anticipated future investment of "sweat equity" in the venture by each co-founder. More often than not, in my experience, someone started working first/harder/longer, quit their day job, made a critical breakthrough early on, etc. — or is expected to pull the most weight in the coming months, solve thorny technical problems, recruit vital team members, and so forth. (Yes, it's a guesstimate, but the same is true of valuation and almost every other metric at an early stage startup.)