1. Might look better in color... Something like #2075c1 ?
I like it:
2. I think a regular but italic serif 'd' might look good, instead of the "flipped P". The italic d would suggest how Pandoc lets you style your text.
Font Awesome does not contain regular characters let alone italocs. That means we would have to combine it with an italic d from another font or switch to another font altogether.
If you propose a font, I can make the modification.