Trying to support unicode in MySQL database
You need utf8mb4 instead of utf8 to get  and a number of other emoji.

You need SET NAMES utf8mb4 after connecting.

You also need to make sure SHOW CREATE TABLE says utf8mb4.

Your "this link tutorial" seems to be broken.  I would like to see what is says.  (And perhaps find an error in it.)

More discussion of utf8mb4.