Removing foundation footing

I need some hopefully simple, quick advice. I'm putting up stacked stone (veneer panels) against a concrete foundation wall that runs along our driveway. (The house is in the Boston area, so plenty of cold/freezing/thawing in winter.) There's currently a concrete footing along the foundation; the exposed part runs 5" high x 3" deep x 16' long. I'd like to jackhammer the exposed portion of the footing out so that the new stone can run right down to the surface of the driveway. My main question is: Would I be endangering the foundation in any way if I did this? And if it's ok to do, should I expect to have to cut away much rebar in the footing? Any other advice for how to cut it out? Here's a photo of the wall, with the footing running from the far right corner to midway along the wall (also attached as file): https://photos.app.goo.gl/zHHn96dkNdQPah96A .