I have made Mascarpone cream cheese frosting MANY times and it is my favorite to use on many different cakes.
The cream needs to be heavy cream and it must be cold, otherwise it won't whip up. If it calls for powdered sugar and a significant amount of heavy cream then you need to switch from a paddle attachment to a whisk attachment on a stand mixer and crank that thing up to high until it looks like thick whipped cream. If it only calls for something like 2/3 cup cream and 1/2 cup granulated sugar then using a paddle attachment is ok, as long as you turn it up to high.
As a rule, once you add the cream you need to turn the machine up to high and just let it sit there for a few long minutes until it reaches the right consistency.