Don't cut your fan leaves anywhere on your plant!. If you can tug a damaged on and it pulls off that's fine , but leave all other leaves, they are your power houses and make the energy to feed the buds, the buds themselves don't make much energy. As for the popcorn buds if you want to take a few off like the really spidery yellow ones hidden in a dark corner of a plant that's fine, but you can get a hell of alot of bud out of those popcorns. The buds tend to fill out the last 2 weeks of flower, so be patient.