Google's John Mueller said on Twitter that when a Google manual action is revoked via Google Search Console, that there is no leftover effect. Your penalty should be fully removed and you should be on your way.
Here is the tweet:
@gelostics If manual action is lifted, there's no letover effect. However, search changes over time too, so it's probably independent.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 10, 2017
Of course, he added that the algorithm can still be in play and that your site may be penalty free of manual actions but the algorithms may not like what they see:
@gelostics no, manual action removal is usually fast. You're possibly seeing normal changes in search unrelated to the manual action.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) March 10, 2017
So as soon as your manual action is lifted, if you don't bounce back, you probably have some algorithms that are against you.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
