SQL Fast database restore with Azure Virtual Machine instant recovery snapshot and SQL in Azure VM?
Then if we have an outage, can I do a faster restore by restoring the VM image? 


No.  See my answer here. Is it possible to restore a database with database backups starting on top of a restored server point in time snapshot that is out of date?

You can't attach a database without crash recovery, and you can't perform a crash recovery without the transaction log file.  Log backups cannot be substituted.  

If you put your database files on Azure Page blobs, instead of on an attached disk you can use File-Snapshot Backups for Database Files in Azure.