These were south of the main thrust for the Ardennes Offensive and probably were connected in terms of tying down Patton and hopefully drawing off reserves from the north.
Of course Patton wasn't going to be tied down.
When Patton did his big shift to the north why didn’t the Germans counter attack in his southern sector? When an army is wheeling to the left or right it is very vulnerable to being flanked.
These are the typical German counterattacks launched at the end of an enemy advance. More or less local in nature, they were intended to achieve limited objectives. Those objectives were to stop the advance, throw the enemy back locally, seize favorable defensive positions for the next phase of operations, and where possible, eliminate enemy bridgeheads.