This! The fun of programming won't come out of a software project.
I find fun in programming by writing code solving small challenges. Something people really hate, e.g. LeetCode, is actually the fun place for me: I really enjoy writing some small size program to solve a made-up problem with my scattered time. I don't need to worry about language, library, framework, platform, UI, etc. The only thing matters is coding, and that's the thing makes me happy.
I find fun in programming by writing code solving small challenges. Something people really hate, e.g. LeetCode, is actually the fun place for me: I really enjoy writing some small size program to solve a made-up problem with my scattered time. I don't need to worry about language, library, framework, platform, UI, etc. The only thing matters is coding, and that's the thing makes me happy.