8 – Create and use a custom Account Email Template

I am trying to create a new Email Template for the Account object using hook_form_alter. Here is how I create the template:

function my_module_form_user_admin_settings_alter(&$form, &$form_state, $form_id) {
    // Adds the Course Link email template to the Account Settings form
    $form('email_course_link') = (
        '#type' => 'details',
        '#title' => t('Course link'),
        '#description' => t('Edit the course link e-mail messages sent to mobile app users.'),
        '#group' => 'email',
    );
    $form('email_course_link')('user_mail_course_link_subject') = (
        '#type' => 'textfield',
        '#title' => t('Subject'),
        '#maxlength' => 180,
    );
    $form('email_course_link')('user_mail_course_link_body') = (
        '#type' => 'textarea',
        '#title' => t('Body'),
        '#rows' => 15,
    );
}

This adds the email template to my Account Settings form, but I am having two issues:

1. When I go to edit the template and hit save configurations, nothing gets saved. The subject and body edits I made are wiped out and they no longer exist.

2. When I go to use the template via _user_mail_notify('email_course_link', $user) I get NULL as the response and there are zero errors to be found and I never get the email…

What else am I missing here?