airpods max, zoom and macbook pro

I recently bought airpods max headphones and I use them with zoom on my macbook pro, 4-7 hours per day. Periodically, the headphones go silent. I could happen after they've worked flawlessly for hours, or within a few minutes. When it goes silent, zoom doesn't seem know that the airpods max are connected via bluetooth, but bluetooth in the mac's system preferences says the airpods max are connected. I turned off bluetooth on my ipad and made sure the max is not connected to the iPhone. The only thing that seems to fix the problem is to reboot the macbook pro. Today, i had to reboot twice, which is very distracting when i'm in a meeting.

There is a tell-tale 'crackling' sound in the airpods max which i've learned is a warning that they are about to go silent. It would be great if there were a fix. When the airpods have gone silent the people with whom i'm speaking can hear me. I can't hear them.

My zoom is up to date

I'm using MacOS Big Sur, version 11.2.3

I have a 2017 MacBook Pro