To answer your question. The "I heart 'whatever'" is not illegal to insert whatever you want. New York has it trademarked, which means that if you use the "I 'heart,'" a similar font to the New York one will get you in trouble down the line. As long as the font isn't a complete copy, you are good to go.
Now that that's out of the way. I am a freelancer form the United States, with my degree in computer animation. I am very familiar with Illustration and would love to be your freelancer on this project. I will be attaching a sample of my Illustration work, and look forward to hearing from you.
Russell Valois