Programmatically call evil-search-forward and then paste

Question

How do I create an elisp function to call evil-search-forward and then paste to search for the last text yanked/copied? I've tried calling commands such as evil-paste-after or yank (see below) but they appear to do nothing when called programmatically after evil-search-forward. I'm using spacemacs.

(define-key evil-normal-state-map (kbd "C-r")
    (defun my-search-fun ()
        (interactive)
        (evil-search-forward)
        (evil-paste-after)
    )
)