Cookie Experts' Advice Needed!! [View all]

Hello! I haven't been on this forum in a loooong time, and hope you're all living and eating well!!

I volunteered to make cookies for a baby shower. It's a "British tea" (plus Mimosas and Bloody Marys!?) with a theme of roses. I found a mold for making rose cookies, like this one:

I tried it out today, using a recipe I found here: https://simplebites.net/beautiful-brown-sugar-molded-cookie-recipe/

1. It was extremely time-consuming because each cookie had to be made individually (rolled out and/or into the mold, removed, and then trimmed, resembling the top thing on the cookies pictured without the round base). Very difficult to get in and out of the mold. Wrong method for this type of mold?

2. The cookie recipe might exclude leavening in order to maintain the mold shape (no puffing up), but they came out hard as bricks! I'd be afraid of dental emergencies at the shower. Wrong recipe?

3. In looking up other recipes, I saw shortbread cookies that are rolled into balls, then stamped with flat, round 'embossers.' That seems great for avoiding the hassle of rolling out dough, the toughness that comes from reworking it, and the time involved. I found a few cookie stamps with rose images, but they are rather expensive!

Any suggestions welcome, and thanks in advance!