How to get photos from my phone to my mac as quickly as possible? Right now, the answer would be airdrop as far as I am concerned.
I would just take a photo and press the share button and then wait for my laptop to come up.

However, I have an older phone and I find the share button to be quite slow to use.

Are there any apps or such that would allow me to take photos and send them to a folder on my mac without having to press anything?
Airdrop is best solutions for that but it's seems your MacBook unable to detect your iPhone because it's older version.
However in your MacBook there has an option under Airdrop like "Search for older device" you can use this option for older device to transfer your photos or you can use Image capture(through spotlight search)