Then those are your Section Types: Note Folders and Notes.
Yes. Probably each top level Note Folder should have the same Section Type, assuming you’ll ultimately want to format them the same. Scrivener can make that assignment automatically if they are all at the same level in the Binder.
Sorry, I wasn’t very precise.
A key thing to understand is that Section Types are a feature of the text. They tell Scrivener what kind of document an item is. Section Layouts are a feature of the Compile Format. They tell Scrivener how things should look. The whole point is that the Section Type doesn’t need to change, because you can use different Section Layouts for different needs.
So.
First you define a Section Type, say “Note Folder,” and assign it to your Note Folders. This happens in the Inspector or in the right-hand pane of the main Compile screen.
Then, in the Compile Format, you define the Section Layout that should be applied to that Section Type. It could be anything, but let’s call it “Top Level.”
In the Top Level Section Layout specification, you check the box for “Title,” which will cause Scrivener to include the Binder title of that item, and will cause “Section Title” dummy text to appear in the preview area.
Apply whatever formatting you want to the dummy text. For the purposes of this specific problem, assigning the Heading 1 Style will ensure that the destination application recognizes it as a “Heading 1.”
Those are the names of the Section Layouts you use.
Assign a Style to the “Section Title” dummy text in the Section Layout that you want to use for this specific Section Type. (Yes, I know that “Section” is being used in too many different ways. Sorry.)
In this specific example, assign the Heading 1 Style to the “Section Title” dummy text in the Top Level Section Layout which is assigned to the Note Folder Section Type.
You don’t. You want the name of the top level folder to have a Heading 1 style in the output document you are creating. Why? Because the style will survive the round-trip to the editor you use to fix your emoji problem, and can then be used to re-split the document when you import it back to Scrivener.