iCloud Photos Situation

So this is strange. I turned off Photos in iCloud on my iPad Pro. I then deleted all photos and videos and albums from the device, as well as the recently deleted folder on my iPad. The Photos app on the iPad was completely empty with no previous album structure.

I then turned Photos back on in iCloud on the iPad and my entire library with album structure synched back with my iPad (optimize iPad storage was on).

I was under the impression that iCloud would not synch album structure if the structure was not resident on the device in question.

If this is in fact possible, will it work like this on my Mac?

Right now I'm restoring a previous Photo Library from Time Machine and it takes a LONG time. Would it be better to do with my Mac as I did above with the iPad?