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Panicle hydrangeas just require mulching and watering. Maintain 3-4” of organic mulch. Keep the soil at a depth of 4” evenly moist. Once the foliage drops or browns out, reduce the amount of water per watering but continue watering until freezing conditions or freezing of the soil force you to stop. If your area gets a lot of heavy, wet snow, consider deadheading the brown blooms to minimize bending or breaking of brittle bones due as soon as the shrub goes fully dormant. If recently planted, you may not need to prune for a few years. You can eventually prune either when fully dormant in the fall, in late winter or early spring. Green, thin stems can promote stem flopping/arching so if pruning, try to prune 1/3 of the length of each stem or less in order to eventually get more thick, woody stems.

These appear very low to the ground. This leads me to believe that they die back, fully, each year. If this is the case, then it may be that this cultivar blooms from shoots grown on previous year's wood. This will mean that the shrub is not suited for your zone, and can only be grown as a foliage shrub.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/hydrangea/hydrangea-not-blooming.htm

If you know for a fact that this is a cultivar that blooms on new wood, then you may want to check soil conditions. There could, definitely, be too much nitrogen in that case.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/testing-soil.htm

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil-fertilizers/soil-ph-plants.htm

As a last resort, you can contact your local extension service, and they may be able to help:

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/extension-search

All things being equal, yes, they should return in spring and they should perform just as if you had done hard pruning or as if someone had mowed over them. As long as the root system is not severely injured, there should be new stem growth in spring 2024 that will provide new stem growth. However, it will take a while for them to reach their prior height/width dimensions. Spring 2024 blooming may be affected for some types of hydrangeas. You did not mention which type of hydrangeas were injured by the gardener. Smooth and panicle hydrangeas would not be impacted as they normally/currently lack any flower buds. The other types of hydrangeas do have some dormant, spring 2024 flower buds by now though. Depending on exactly how deeply the gardener cut the stems, spring 2024 blooming may be eliminated completely, may be reduced a bit or may be unaffected as stems also have back up, lower stem flower buds. That means for cultivars that bloom only on old wood, the gardener may have cut off all blooms for all of 2024 if the the cuts were deep enough or only reduced the number of blooms if some back up flower buds can produce blooms instead. For Big Leaf Hydrangeas, Mountain Hydrangeas and Bracted Hydrangeas that bloom on both old and new wood, spring 2024 blooming may have been impacted as previously mentioned but, the late summer/fall 2024 flush of blooms should occur as usual once the new spring 2024 stems achieve sufficient age/height to trigger bud set and immediate blooming to bloom by late summer/fall 2024 or earlier.

Just continue watering at ‘dormancy watering levels’ once it goes dormant and drops foliage. Foliage will eventually turn medium yellow or orange and then drop. Maybe it will turn dark green, almost black or turn brown if early frosts hit the Waco area by the 2nd-3rd weeks of November. Blooms should finish color changing and turn brown when spent. The stems will also color change as they harden for winter, turning from green to shades of either gray, brown or sandy colors. All this equates to dormancy and a reduced need (a lesser amount) for water when compared to spring watering levels as there are no leaves requiring moisture. You can keep the container outside or bring it into a garage. Once dormant in the garage, test the potting soil moisture (near the top 2-3 inches but also test to a lesser frequency at the bottom of the container) periodically to avoid letting the soil get bone dry in our dry Texas winters. This winter in Texas is forecasted to have a strong El Niño Southern Oscillation Climate Pattern, when moisture from the Pacific Ocean promotes more precipitation but, there can be dry spells too. Ensure that the container has sufficient/appropriate water drainage holes (drill more holes if the soil at the bottom often tests soggy). Since we do get some winter hail storms in winter here in the DFW Metroplex, I lean towards storing it in the garage to avoid damage to thin stems by large hail stones. Sleet with pellets that are less than 5mm, rarely causes panicle stems to break or bend unless there is a large amount, the plant is not dormant and the stems are still green and pliable). Freezing rain should not bother the panicle stems much but you can protect it if it has flopping branches and if forecasts call for large amounts of freezing rain. While dormant, the shrub will not need sun as there are no leaves needing direct sunlight to photosynthesize. Panicles are typically winter hardy to zone 3. While it can be planted in the ground too, in areas with caliche soil in Central Texas, consider growing it in containers. Depending on the local weather, panicles can break dormancy as early as March in the DFW Metroplex Area but, they do so after Oakleaf and Big Leaf Hydrangeas first break dormancy. No need to worry about flower buds, as usually, there are none at this time. Panicles will break dormancy by setting leaf bud set first and as early as April-May, some early blooming cultivars may then develop flower bud set in early, warm, favorable years. As for existing blooms, you can either never deadhead the blooms or you can deadhead panicle blooms at any time and on any month of the year that you wish. Although panicle blooms will remain attached to the stem until late astronomical spring, they will eventually drop. To deadhead safely without impacting future blooms, prune ABOVE the first pair of leaves (if the stem is leafless, prune the string(s) that attach the bloom to the stem). Similarly, you can never prune stems or you could prune from now until you observe leaf bud set in March. However, consider delaying pruning if the weather forecasts call for warm temperatures plummeting well below 32°F as pruning is an activity that can trigger new stem growth and new foliage growth that will get killed by the sudden drop from the 70s to the teens or lower. Likewise, you can prune later in winter but, during one of our common warm spells in mid-winter, skip pruning until cooler temperatures (soil temperatures below 50°F) arrive. Because some panicle cultivars' stems tend to arch downwards in the summer due to the weight of dense, heavy, wet blooms on thin, green stems or when the shrub is in the middle of the landscape, consider pruning no more than 1/3 of the length of each stem. Generally speaking, woody looking stems are normally stronger than green, thin ones. You can bring the pot outside as soon as all danger of frost has passed, usually by your city’s average date of last frost around the 1st-2nd weeks of April.

Removing the shade probably did affect your hydrangeas, although some hydrangeas can take more sun than others. Watering more can help with the wilting. If they are old and established and you'd rather not move them, you could add a structure or taller plants that would create shade in the afternoon.

If you want to move them, here is help:

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/shrubs/hydrangea/transplanting-hydrangea-bushes.htm

It depends on the type of hydrangea you have. If they are panicle or smooth hydrangeas, they can be cut back in spring. Those that bloom on old wood (previous season's bud set), such as the mophead hydrangea and oakleaf hydrangea, should be pruned after they bloom.

If you have been pruning them in winter and still getting blooms in summer then yours must be smooth or panicle hydrangeas. You can prune them right up until buds start forming.

https://extension.umd.edu/resource/guide-pruning-hydrangeas