VMLINUX_BTF can be empty if you didn't build a kernel or it doesn't have
a BTF section and the current kernel also has no BTF. This is totally
ok.
But VMLINUX_H should be set to the minimal version in the source tree
(unless you overwrite it manually) when you don't pass GEN_VMLINUX_H=1
(which requires VMLINUX_BTF should not be empty). The problem is that
it's defined in Makefile.config which is not included for `make clean`.