Which brand pushrods did you buy?
I have bent pushrods like that when installing the rocker arms and shaft before by catching a pushrod cup on the pushrod on the side of a adjuster before I saw it caught
I now use a stiff thin wire or the oil dip stick on the intake side of the rocker arm pedestals to hold all the pushrods on the side I'm working on to make them stay up away from the heads so the rocker arm adjusters will fit into them as I tighten the rocker arm shafts
IHTHs
As far as your pushrod choice I like and use Manton series 3 3/8x.120 wall on most of my roller cam motors for bracket racing and on my half way serious street and strip motors. I saw a 8HP and a 300 RPM peak HP increase gain going from Smith Bros. 3/8 x .083 wall (they were suppose to be .120 wall to start with that I had ordered and paid for ) to a set of Manton 3/8x.120 wall with no other changes on a DTS engine dyno several years back One of those Smith Bros. pushrods had bent and then broke into two parts taking out the pushrod next to it and breaking the top off of the Crower Ultra solid roller lifter allowing that lifter to end up in the lifter valley like yours did and then that broken half pushrod dropped into the bushed lifter bore gauging it and gauging the cam lobe also
On the roller cam motors that I build and race that have over 700 Lbs. pressure at max lift I now use Manton 7/16x.095 wall series five pushrods
I have use the Manton single tapered 7/16 to 3/8 with .147 wall but I was told by Terry Manton before he died that he didn't think I really needed that serious of pushrods for a 440 motor that had 875 Lbs. pressure at max lift spinning the motor to 7500 RPM or so, not above 8500 RPM I'm sure he was correct