I believe the emoji modifiers appeared much later than the hearts variations. The red heart is also an OG emoji and variations, such as broken heart (2010) and

I believe the emoji modifiers appeared much later than the hearts variations. The red heart is also an OG emoji and variations, such as broken heart (2010) and purple heart (2010) came much later. The skin tone modifiers seem to appear in 2017, and some other joined emoji seem to date back to 2015 [2]. So in summary, it's historical and changing it would break unicode. [1] https://emojipedia.org/search/?q=heart https://emojipedia.org/search/?q=heart [2] https://emojipedia.org/eye-in-speech-bubble/ https://emojipedia.org/eye-in-speech-bubble/