Hi,
I don't understand how your setup is working.
If you set the stock to 0 in the variants, then it's not possible to purchase the product even if you set a stock in the main product.
If you want to have the stock decremented accross the variants, then you indeed need to set a stock in the main product, however, you need to leave the stock of the variants to unlimited and not 0.
If the product is properly configured, then the "choose options" button will disappear and will be replaced by "out of stock" when the stock of the main product reaches 0.
If you want to customize the message for different products, you'll have to edit the code:
echo JText::_('NO_STOCK');
in the file "add_to_cart_ajax.php" (for the listing) and the file "quantity.php" (for the product page) via the menu Display>Views.