So ball heads, rather than a 3-way?
Ball heads are a popular choice, but a good ball head is pricy. A cheap ball head is no fun at all (sticky, jerky, slips, etc).
I'm not sure this is suitable beginners advice, but my notion is this. If the camera is in normal horizontal landscape orientation, either a pan head (3 way) or a ball head can be aimed. Pan head has a longer lever, which sometimes can be a plus, where ball head, you just aim the camera (using its lens and viewfinder). At one time, I thought a pan head was perfectly fine, I had used one for decades, and I could not imagine any real advantage of the ball head. And certainly, the pan head is greatly better for a video camera, but ball heads can sort of pan (a tilted pan is a problem).
Either one seems fine for normal horizontal landscape use. For rotated vertical camera portrait orientation, the camera is hanging over the side of the mount. With a
heavy lens (24-70mm is what did me in, and greatly changed my needs and opinion), on the friction plate, the camera tends to slip around its own tripod screw, and so the lens droops down, and you cannot keep it aimed at the subject. Its friction surface slips from the weight of the lens. The mount needs more than a friction mount, it needs a mount with blocking ridges which actually bind and hold the camera.
A macro lens is probably not normally in this heavy lens class. And like a 70-200 mm lens has its mounting foot (it rotates to stay on top), not a problem. But the 24-70, with no foot, was a really big problem for me.
Or... ideally, either head needs a L-bracket, mounting either horizontal or vertical - either way - where you simply quickly rotate and remount the camera on its other edge, but always still directly over the tripod mount. Not hanging over the side to slip and droop. Then down is the one direction it cannot slip.
(there may be a few exceptions, but) the good L-brackets have Arca Swiss mounts (sort of a universal dovetail V slot mount, cannot slip). Ball heads do accept Arca Swiss plates. Pan heads typically don't, they are either friction or proprietary (Manfrotto does have one new ball version that does use Arca Swiss plates, but most of theirs don't).
So my 24-70 in portrait orientation made a L-plate, and thus Arca Swiss, and thus a ball head, mandatory. And, it turns out that a good ball head is a pleasure.