For any civ with a warrior UU, yes those are a good first option instead a scout. You will still need a couple scouts, but they can be later. Before too long, the Jaguar runs out of forest and jungle to explore. Before too long, any warrior UU will need to come back home. (If not for defense, then to upgrade.) Scouts just keep going and going. Instead of coming back home, eventually they can park on ruins.
My typical pangaea/continents build order is: scout, scout, shrine, monument.
For Aztec, I would go jaguar, scout, monument, and evaluate from there. If the jags have gotten me a pantheon, probably I skip the shrine. After that is another scout, as I will have better uses for the jags than more scouting from them. I really want to unveil the map, so definitely a second scout. If you skip the scouts entirely with Aztec, it is too easy to trick yourself out of good exploring. Not too long ago, someone posted a mid-game screen shot where that happened to them.