Enable waypoints on your location bar with your friends' faces instead of dots for icons with no mods required. Pure vanilla datapacks and resources.

How to install a datapack and resourcepack:

1. Download the datapack waypoint.zip and put into your world's datapacks folder.
2. Download the resourcepack waypoint_resources.zip and put into your world's resourcepacks folder.

THEN:

You must create a profile for every player that you would like to have a custom waypoint.

Step 1. create the four png files listed below (using no capital letters in the file names) similar to the example herobrine_0.png files and place them into the following directory:
resourcepacks/WayPoints/assets/gatkong/textures/gui/sprites/hud/locator_bar_dot
playername_0.png
playername_1.png
playername_2.png
playername_3.png

Tip: You can copy/paste the 8x8 face from the player's skin to use for the png files.

Step 2. copy and paste the example json file playername.json, and rename it to the player's in-game name (using no capital letters) in the following directory:
resourcepacks/WayPoints/assets/gatkong/waypoint_style

Step 3. open the player json file you just created, and rename everywhere you see the example playername with the player's in-game name (using no capital letters) in the following directory:
resourcepacks/WayPoints/assets/gatkong/waypoint_style

Step 3. open the file datapacks/WayPoints/data/gatkong/function/gatkong/_config and follow the directions there.

Finally:
-reload your texture packs by pressing in game F3+t
-reload your world by typing into game chat /reload

More details on how to install datapacks: https://minecraft.wiki/w/Data_pack

More details on how to install resourcepacks: https://minecraft.wiki/w/Resource_pack
A server can be configured to push required resources by setting resource-pack to an HTTP(S) URL pointing to a ZIP archive resource pack in server.properties. Players can then choose if they want to download the resource pack or not when joining. Players can also be forced to accept the resource pack by setting require-resource-pack=true; in this case, rejecting the resource pack disconnects the player from the server.

Player Waypoints