[Ethereum] Is it possible to send ether to a contract after deployment inside a hardhat test

This is using Hardhat with ethers.js:

My test wants to deploy a contract and then I want to send ether to it:

const { ethers } = require("hardhat");
describe("HandleEther contract", function () {
  let factory;
  let contract;
  let owner;
  let addr1;

  beforeEach(async function () {
    factory = await ethers.getContractFactory("HandleEther");
    [owner, addr1] = await ethers.getSigners();
    contract = await factory.deploy();
  });

  describe("Deployment", function () {
    it("Should send ether to contract after deployment", async function () {
        const params = { from: owner,to: addr1, value: ethers.utils.parseUnits("1", "ether").toHexString()};
        const txHash = await owner.provider.sendTransaction(params);
        console.log("transactionHash is " + txHash);  
    });
  });
});

When I run npx hardhat test, I see this:

$ npx hardhat test


  HandleEther contract
    Deployment
      1) Should send ether to contract after deployment


  0 passing (447ms)
  1 failing

  1) HandleEther contract
       Deployment
         Should send ether to contract after deployment:
     Error: invalid hexlify value (argument="value", value={"from":"<SignerWithAddress 0xf39Fd6e51aad88F6F4ce6aB8827279cffFb92266>","to":"<SignerWithAddress 0x70997970C51812dc3A010C7d01b50e0d17dc79C8>","value":"0x0de0b6b3a7640000"}, code=INVALID_ARGUMENT, version=bytes/5.4.0)
      at Logger.makeError (node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/src.ts/index.ts:213:28)
      at Logger.throwError (node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/src.ts/index.ts:225:20)
      at Logger.throwArgumentError (node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/src.ts/index.ts:229:21)
      at Object.hexlify (node_modules/@ethersproject/bytes/src.ts/index.ts:247:19)
      at /home/xrd/Projects/ExtraStatic/eth/hardhat-simplified/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/src.ts/base-provider.ts:1212:74
      at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:95:5)
      at runNextTicks (internal/process/task_queues.js:64:3)
      at listOnTimeout (internal/timers.js:524:9)
      at processTimers (internal/timers.js:498:7)

My contract contracts/HandleEther.sol looks like this:

pragma solidity ^0.8.7;
contract HandleEther {
    constructor() payable {
    }
}

My hardhat.config.js:

require("@nomiclabs/hardhat-waffle");

/**
 * @type import('hardhat/config').HardhatUserConfig
 */
module.exports = {
  solidity: "0.8.7",
};

My package.json is:

{
  "name": "hardhat-simplified",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "index.js",
  "license": "MIT",
  "dependencies": {
    "hardhat": "^2.6.0"
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@nomiclabs/hardhat-ethers": "^2.0.2",
    "@nomiclabs/hardhat-waffle": "^2.0.1",
    "chai": "^4.3.4",
    "ethereum-waffle": "^3.4.0",
    "ethers": "^5.4.4"
  }
}