I strongly sugggest that you a write several authority articles that do't directly link to an afffiliate page, but I would lil externally to toher authority sites.

If I understand the training correctly, it is best to have a few posts that don't link to external affiliates. So that might mean having a solid review (that you can edit as the conditions change) with a few affiliate links and then having a few other posts about that topic without external affiliate links that do have internal links to the product review. So it acts like a funnel from your helpful informational posts, to your product review, and ultimately to your affiliates webpage via your affiliate links.

I'm not sure if google has a ratio in their algorithm that says "for every 1 website with external links, there must be 3 websites without external links." If they do, I'd sure love to know what that ratio is :)

I limit my link to three per review, 1 after the first paragraph, 1 after telling the pros of the product and 1 at the end of the review. If you want to link an other article to the review, you can use internal link.
You can use ultimate shortcode plugin to create awesome buttons for your links within your review :) I'm french and my english isn't perfect, hope that help :)
Goodluck.