Is it possible to enter emojis directly using a keyboard shortcut? I would like to enter emojis directly from the keyboard. E.g. that I type ‘:D’ and it gets converted to ‘’. Is that possible?

I know about the control + command + space shortcut to open the emoji palette, but I am looking for a faster way.
Go to System Preferences → Keyboard → Text and set as many replacements as you wish.

Set the ‘Replace’ to the standard characters and the ‘With’ to the emoji you would like the ‘Replace’ to be replaced with.

These synchronise over iCloud, so will be available on your iOS devices too.