std::codecvt_utf8_utf16

#include <cassert>
#include <codecvt>
#include <cstdint>
#include <iostream>
#include <locale>
#include <string>

int main()
{
    std::string u8 = "z\u00df\u6c34\U0001f34c";
    std::u16string u16 = u"z\u00df\u6c34\U0001f34c";
    
    // UTF-8 to UTF-16/char16_t
    std::u16string u16_conv = std::wstring_convert<
        std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<char16_t>, char16_t>{}.from_bytes(u8);
    assert(u16 == u16_conv);
    std::cout << "UTF-8 to UTF-16 conversion produced " << u16_conv.size()
              << " code units:\n" << std::showbase << std::hex;
    for (char16_t c : u16_conv)
        std::cout << static_cast<std::uint16_t>(c) << ' ';
    
    // UTF-16/char16_t to UTF-8
    std::string u8_conv = std::wstring_convert<
        std::codecvt_utf8_utf16<char16_t>, char16_t>{}.to_bytes(u16);
    assert(u8 == u8_conv);
    std::cout << "\nUTF-16 to UTF-8 conversion produced "
              << std::dec << u8_conv.size() << " bytes:\n" << std::hex;
    for (char c : u8_conv)
        std::cout << +static_cast<unsigned char>(c) << ' ';
    std::cout << '\n';
}

Вывод:

UTF-8 to UTF-16 conversion produced 5 code units:
0x7a 0xdf 0x6c34 0xd83c 0xdf4c
UTF-16 to UTF-8 conversion produced 10 bytes:
0x7a 0xc3 0x9f 0xe6 0xb0 0xb4 0xf0 0x9f 0x8d 0x8c