K0 Max

I recently went down this exact rabbit hole! I had very similar needs, and I settled on a Keychron K0 Max number pad. It has a volume knob and an entire keypad to assign inputs and macros to. So I have keys set to play/pause, skip, etc. And keys to open Apple Music and Audio MIDI Setup. It's worked

You can increase the number of macros and the space for macros, but it requires changing the keyboard firmware (changing a few numbers in the source code and compile). It also opens for defining classic QMK macros (static macros). For example, stable and tested dynamic macros can be migrated to be c

Re "I would need to edit the keyboard's firmware in order to increase the macro limit?": Yes, change 1-3 lines in the source code and compile the keyboard firmware from the result Note that the source code being in Keychron's fork complicates matters, so the information in the instructions here is c