First cake I ever made and decorated

I decided to try and make my fiancé his birthday cake! He said he wanted as much chocolate as possible.

I was so worried about my cake being dry, but it was very soft and delicious. I actually used this recipe here: https://www.food.com/recipe/darn-good-chocolate-cake-cake-mix-cake-87205 At first I was just wisking it by hand, which I did for the cakes, but when I got to the buttercream I stopped working on it and ran to Walmart to get a hand-mixer in anger because I broke my whisk. 😂

I had never made buttercream before and it turned out great. I've also learned I'm not the biggest fan of American Buttercream. I think it's just too sweet for me. I've heard about swiss-merengue or ermine, but I'm not sure if that'll be too hard for me.

But the cake turned out delicious and even thought the buttercream is really sweet, the cake balanced it out very well. I'm really proud for my first time and I'm glad that I was able to decorate it semi-okay.

I also learned that I need bigger drums and I need to make a lot more buttercream 😂 I don't have a picture of the back cause I couldn't do the shell border on the bottom all the way around the cake cause I ran out of buttercream and I wasn't about to run to Walmart again after leaving with my hand-mixer. 😂

If y'all have feedback, I'd appreciate hearing your expertise!