๐ What each heart emoji really means ๐
Questions about heart emoji are very common and it makes a lot of sense. No one wants to be accused of making the wrong impression, or to step over some line of familiar emoji.
Does a blue heart mean platonic love, and a green heart jealousy? Does this mix have a platonic heart? Can one of the red hearts be considered more suitable for men than the other red heart?
We are here to tell you that there is no secret heart emoji code that can be hacked.
Each heart has subtle nuances in both how it is used and what it represents. However, internally, each heart has no more coded meaning than what it seems at first glance.
As for whether John Mayer is right that one of the red hearts is more masculine than the other? Let’s see what the data tells us.
๐๐ The popularity of heart emoji
Although heart emoji are popular all year round, they are especially popular in February.
Looking at the 20 hearts, we see them here in order of popularity.ย Using data from Twitter, a large discrepancy can be seen between the most used and least used heart emoji.

The most popular heart emoji on Twitter are Red Heart, followed by ๐ Two Hearts, ๐ Purple Heart, and ๐ Blue Heart.ย This is in many ways consistent with other publicly available data on hearts.
The least popular heart emoji is ๐ค Brown Heart.
- โค๏ธ Red heart
- ๐ Two hearts
- ๐ Purple Heart
- ๐ Blue heart
- ๐ Broken heart
- ๐ Sparkling Heart
- โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit
- ๐ Growing heart
- ๐ Yellow heart
- ๐ Beating heart
- ๐ Green Heart
- ๐ค White heart
- ๐ค โโBlack Heart
- ๐ Rotating hearts
- โฃ๏ธ Exclamation of the heart
- ๐ Heart with an arrow
- ๐งก Orange Heart
- ๐ Heart with ribbon
- ๐ Heart decoration
- ๐ค Brown heart
Other emojis that include hearts like ๐ฅฐ Smiling Face with Heart, ๐ Smiling Face with Heart Eyes and in particular ๐ Kiss and ๐ Couples with Heart? All of them are quite complex in their own way and are not included in this analysis.
We want to focus on emojis in which the classic ideograph of the heart is the main design element.
๐ฉ Dating Hotel, ๐ Wedding, and ๐ Love Letter also include hearts, but are not included in this rating.
๐๐ Heart Group
By grouping hearts by color and valence, we get four categories:
- Simple red hearts (โค๏ธ Red Heart, โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit)
- Exquisite hearts (for example, Sparkling heart, ๐ Heart with an arrow, ๐ Heart with a ribbon)
- Other colored hearts (e.g. ๐ Purple Heart, ๐ Blue Heart)
- Broken heart (๐ Broken heart)
It’s worth noting that each heart looks different on each platform.ย Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

The main difference in appearance has to do with whether the designed hearts are shown in pink or red.
There are also design options in which on some platforms โค๏ธ Glitter Red Heart and โฅ ๏ธ Matte Heart Suit, while others display all emojis in matte color.
Having disassembled this heart emoji background, let’s take a look at how hearts are used.
Emoticon combinations ๐๐ฅบ
Perhaps the best way to understand how each of the hearts is used is to identify which emoji they are used with.
We can see that simple red hearts (โค๏ธ โฅ ๏ธ) and complex (often, but not always pink, i.e. ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐โฃ๏ธ) hearts usually appear in the same tweets as various emojis, while while other colored hearts (๐งก ๐๐๐๐๐ค๐ค๐ค) are more commonly used together.
Instead of just sticking a blue heart in, people often use a yellow, green, and purple heart next to it.

The heart emoji that overlaps with others the least? ๐ Broken heart. He stands alone in sadness, often appearing with emojis invisible in the best matches for any other heart.
๐ถ A walking person takes on a dark meaning when served with a broken heart ๐ถ๐.
The diagram above shows the Apple emojis that appear in most iOS and macOS apps. Various other designs are shown for Android or Windows users. The individual emoji characters are shown below, which means they will be displayed using your device’s own emoji font.
โค๏ธ Red Heart: ๐ฅบ๐ญ๐๐๐ฅฐ๐โจ๐๐๐๐๐๐ฉ๐๐๐๐ฅโบ๏ธ๐๐คฃ
โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit: ๐ฅบ๐๐โจ๐ญ๐๐ฅฐ๐๐ฅ๐น๐๐โค๏ธ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ป๐ค
โฃ๏ธ Heart exclamation: โจ๐๐โค๏ธ๐ฅฐ๐ฅบ๐๐๐๐โบ๏ธ๐๐๐ญ๐โผ ๏ธ๐๐ฆ๐๐
๐ Flashing heart: ๐ฅบ๐โจ๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐ฅฐ๐๐๐โค๏ธ๐๐๐๐๐๐โฃ๏ธ
๐ Two hearts: โจ๐ฅบ๐ญ๐๐๐ฅฐ๐๐โบ๏ธโค๏ธ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ฆโฃ๏ธ๐๐
๐ A growing heart: ๐ฅบ๐๐๐ญโจ๐๐๐๐๐ฅฐ๐๐๐๐โค๏ธ๐โบ๏ธ๐๐ธ๐
๐ A beating heart : ๐ฅบ ๐๐โจ๐ญ๐๐๐๐ฅฐโบ๏ธ๐๐โค๏ธ๐๐๐๐๐โฃ๏ธ๐ณ
๐ Rotating hearts: ๐๐๐๐ฅบ๐๐๐โจ๐ญ๐ฅฐ๐โค๏ธ๐๐โฃ๏ธ๐๐๐๐๐
๐ Heart with an arrow: ๐๐ ๐๐๐๐ฅบ๐๐ญ๐โค๏ธโจ๐ฅฐ๐๐๐๐โฃ๏ธ๐๐๐
๐ Heart with ribbon: ๐๐๐๐๐๐โค๏ธโจ๐โฃ๏ธ๐๐๐ฅบ๐๐๐๐ฅฐ๐งก๐๐ค
๐ Heart decoration: ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐โค๏ธ๐โฃ๏ธ๐งก๐ค๐๐ฅฐ๐ฅบ๐
๐ Purple Heart: ๐ฅบ๐๐ญ๐๐โจโค๏ธ๐๐งก๐๐๐๐ฅฐ๐ค๐๐๐๐๐๐ฆ
๐ Blue Heart: ๐๐๐๐ฅโค๏ธ๐๐ฐ๐ช๐งก๐ฅบ๐โก๐๐๐๐โจ๐บ๐ค๐ญ
๐ Yellow heart: ๐๐๐โค๏ธ๐งก๐ฅบโจ๐ค๐๐๐๐๐ญ๐ป๐ฅฐ๐๐๐๐๐ค
๐ Green heart: ๐๐๐โค๏ธ๐งก๐ฅบ๐๐๐คโจ๐๐ญ๐ค๐๐๐ฅฐ๐๐ธ๐ฆ๐๐
๐งก Orange heart : ๐๐๐๐โค๏ธ๐ค๐ฅบโจ๐๐๐๐๐ค๐๐ญ๐ฅฐ๐๐๐๐ค
๐ค White heart: ๐ฅบ ๐๐คโจ๐โค๏ธ๐ญ๐๐๐งก๐ฅฐโ๐๐ค๐๐๐๐ฆ๐โบ๏ธ
๐ค โโBlack heart : โค๏ธ๐๐ฅบ๐๐๐ค๐๐งกโจ๐๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ฅฐ๐ญ๐ โฅ ๏ธ๐๐
๐ค Brown heart: ๐ค๐๐งก ๐๐๐๐คโค๏ธ๐๐ฅบ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ขโฃ๏ธโจ
๐ Broken heart: ๐ญ๐๐๐ฅบ๐๐ข๐๐คฆ๐๐ฉ๐๐ถโน๏ธ๐น๐ชโค๏ธ๐ฅ๐คฆ๐ป๐ฃ๐ถ๐ป
This incredibly colorful mesh gives us the big picture. You can almost get a feel for what each heart is like by looking at which emoji it is used with.
If you want to know how these hearts are used, this will be a helpful start.
But to truly understand the meaning of each emoji, we need more specificity. In detail, every heart tells a story.
What does red heart emoji mean โค๏ธ
โค๏ธ The red heart is by and large the most popular heart. In fact, โค๏ธ Red Heart is the fourth most popular emoji used on Twitter in 2020.
This heart appears in 8 out of every 1,000 tweets over the course of a year, more than double the frequency of ๐ Two Hearts, the next most popular heart emoji in our sample of tweets.
When we look at the top 200 N-grams used along with a sample of over 1.6 million English-language tweets, we see a plethora of terms that you would expect to see alongside the most popular heart emoji around the world. These include expressions:
- Affection (eg “love”;)
- Gratitude (eg “thank”; “thank you”)
- Appreciation (eg, “handsome”)
- Another positive emotional expression (eg, “happy”; “good”; “excellent”)

We can also see that โค๏ธ Red Heart is a popular emoji that can be placed next to birthday wishes (โbirthdayโ is the fourth most common word that can be used with this emoji).

If you look at the 10 best emojis of 2020 (๐๐ญ๐ฅบ๐คฃโจ๐๐๐ฅฐ๐), almost all of them are next to โค๏ธ Red heart. Popular emoticons are most often used in a positive emotional context and are often used in combination.
โค๏ธ The red heart should be considered the standard against which we should compare all other hearts.
What does emoji mean โฅ ๏ธ
โฅ ๏ธ The heart suit is designed to be presented in a very specific context: the red heart suit of French playing cards. As such, it is usually displayed alongside the ๏ธ Club Suit, โฆ ๏ธ Diamond Suit, and โ ๏ธ Spades Suit on emoji keyboards and selection interfaces.
โฅ ๏ธ The Heart Suit is shown in a separate part of the emoji keyboard on Apple and Samsung phones, which may affect how often it is used.
This does not apply to Pixel and other Android devices using Gboard or the Android Messages app keyboard [^ 99].ย For these phones, the โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit emoticon can be found in two places: once with the rest of the hearts, and it can also be found next to the card suits.

From a purely visual point of view โฅ ๏ธ The Heart Suit is most reminiscent of โค๏ธ Red Heart in emoji designs, often only featuring a deeper shade of red or matte appearance instead of a glossy design.
In a direct comparison of the n-grams most associated with the โฅ ๏ธ heart suit in our sample, we see that 92.5% share with the โค๏ธ red heart: the highest rate among our sample.

Red hearts mean romance ๐น๐ But not always โค๏ธ โฅ ๏ธ
We see Kiss Mark only appear in the top 20 โค๏ธ Red Heart, โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit. The only heart that included Kiss Mark in the top 20 emoji is ๐ Heart with Arrow.
Another romantically connected emoji, ๐น Rose, also appears frequently in tweets with โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit. This does not apply to other heart emoji.
We see that โค๏ธ Red Heart and โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit are more often used to convey romance, flirting and desire compared to other hearts.
It might not come as a surprise, but it’s nice that the data supports these sentiments.
Exquisite hearts ๐๐๐ Glitter โจ
Often referred to as โpink heartsโ (even though they are not pink on all platforms), they have some additional design elements, be it a bow, sequins, or an extra heart.
Colored red in the Twemoji set, they are pink on most other platforms, making it even more different from โค๏ธ Red Heart.
๐ Two Hearts is the second most popular heart emoji on Twitter, it contains 91.5% of the same n-grams as ัะตัะดัะต Red Heart.
The context in which the ๐ Two Hearts emoji can be used is quite interchangeable with ัะตัะดัะต Red Heart.ย Slightly less overlap than โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit.

๐ “Two hearts” are often used for aesthetic purposes; Commenting on the content of an image or other tweet (“art”), or drawing attention to a call to action on a tweet (“discount”, “code”).
This interpretation is also facilitated by the presence of Sparkles as the emoji most frequently seen in tweets from ๐ Two Hearts.

As discussed in our recent analysis of the use of emojis on TikTok, โจ Sparkles is used to give โemphasisโ to a given text, but it is also used to create feelings of excitement or admiration.
While it is well known that emoticons are used to express moods, they are also often used to add a decorative element to messages. This provides a playful artistry that would not be present in the message if other forms of textual parallel language were not used.
TL; DR: Sometimes it’s as much about “aesthetics” as it is about tone.
Looking at tweets that feature ๐ Two Hearts and โจ Sparkles, they are mostly used directly next to each other, creating this positively charged emoji combination: ๐โจ
๐โฃ๏ธ๐๐๐
Speaking of sparkles, the Sparkling Heart emoji is not as similar to โจ Sparkles as it is to ๐ Two Hearts. Perhaps due to its inclusion in the emoji itself.
โจ Sparkles is ranked # 1 in the โฃ๏ธ Heart Exclamation rankings and is in the top 5 for the other three (๐ Sparkling Heart, ๐ Beating Heart
and ๐ Growing Heart) and in the top 11 for three more (๐ Revolving Hearts, ๐ Heart with Ribbon). , and ๐ Heart with an arrow).
There are a lot of charts here at ots. Scroll by if you’re more interested in colored hearts than this quirky collection of decorative hearts.





Overall, the Sparks are what sets this category of hearts apart from others like colored hearts.
Colored hearts ๐๐๐
Eight heart emoji are of a color other than red. They are usually grouped together on the emoji keyboard.
Most of the myths about the meanings of heart emoji come from this set. Is there any truth in this?
What does purple heart emoji mean ๐
This is the first heart to be dominated by one topic of conversation on Twitter.
Not for some special form of love, but for a specific Korean boy band.
๐ Purple Heart is an emoji for fans of Bangtan Sonyeondan , better known as BTS.
According to our sample, the purple heart emoji is the third most popular heart on Twitter.ย Without a doubt, millions of BTS fans are helping out.

Looking at the related words, โlove,โ โgratitude,โ and โhappy birthdayโ are still used primarily for this emoji, but some of the more striking references to BTS in the purple heart emoji tweets include:
- “BTS” (n-gram # 7), of course referring to the group itself
- “Army” (# 8 n-gram), a reference to BTS’s official fandom name, BTS ARMY.
- โJiminโ (# 56 n-gram) refers to the BTS member with the same name, as well as โJungkookโ (# 71), โTaehyungโ (# 73), โYoongiโ (# 99).
79.5% of ๐ Purple Heart emoticons are used in conjunction with โค๏ธ Red Heart.ย The most popular other emoji used with purple heart are shown below.

Purple Heart has more in common with Red Heart than Green Heart, where emoji overlap drops to 71.5%.
What does green heart emoji mean ๐
This dominance of one topic of conversation is also seen in words and phrases used in conjunction with ๐ Green Heart. It’s about another K-pop group: the boy band NCT.

In addition to the group’s name, NCT refers to other references to Green Heart, including “jaemin”, “renjun” and “zhong”.
The feelings behind the great heart emoji are like almost any other heart: affection, gratitude, and other positive expressions.
This can also be seen in the top 20 emoji used alongside ๐ Green Heart.ย A notable addition to this set is the ๐ธ๐ฆ Flag: Saudi Arabia ranks 18th among the most likely emojis to find on tweets with ๐ Green hearts.

What does yellow heart emoji mean ๐
๐ Yellow Heart and ๐ Blue Heart are among the top 5 emoji most associated with ๐ Purple Heart and ๐ Green Heart.
Looking at the best emoji for other color based heart emoji, we can see similar notoriety for their colored heart siblings:

๐ป The sunflower is often placed next to the ๐ Yellow heart. It can be said that the yellow heart is used in this context to decorate a tweet or message. A little color to make you smile.
What does orange heart emoji mean ๐งก
Orange Heart is a newer addition to the emoji keyboard than magenta, green, and yellow. Added in 2017, this came almost ten years after most hearts first hit platforms like iOS and Android.
The suggestion for this emoji is focused on orange missing color in ๐ rainbow. At the time of adding, all other colors of the rainbow had their own hearts, except for orange.
The data supports this claim, as the main reason people use an orange heart is simply to place it next to a blue, yellow, purple, green, and red heart.

Above: The top 20 emoji are most likely to appear next to ๐งก Orange Heart compared to the total sample of tweets.
Missing in Orange Heart and related emojis: ๐ Fallen Leaf, ๐ Jack-O-Lantern, or ๐ Tangerine. Some of them may be more seasonal, while hearts with hearts are evergreen.
What does blue heart emoji mean ๐
๐ Blue Heart features the most unique selection of the top 20 emojis in our analysis.
It turns out that brands love to use emojis.ย Consider it a corporate heart emoji.

๐ Pointing Left is a famous Twitter call to action emoji that directs users to a link. Other emojis that can be seen next to ๐ Blue Heart strongly indicate that this call to action is related to e-commerce: Moneybag, โก๏ธ High Voltage (indicates a flash sale), and ๐ Shopping cart.
Maybe brands want to include hearts but try to stay as neutral as possible? The blue heart seems to have become the most harmless heart in the sale of goods.
The top n-grams next to ๐ Blue Heart also show a strong emphasis on e-commerce.ย Selling things.

As soon as the usual “love”, “thank you” and “happy birthday” disappear, we will see “coupon”, “promo”, “discount” and “shop”, all in the first 40 n-grams associated with this emoji …
What does black heart emoji mean ๐ค
You can expect the black heart to be more goth than the corresponding emojis to do it seems. In the top 20 emoji used in conjunction with Heart Black Heart, we see no mention of ๐ฆ Bat or โ๏ธ Chains.
Emoji with a black heart is disappointingly similar to hearts in other colors.

What does the white heart emoji mean ๐ค
What stands out in the use of ๐ค White Heart is not the set of emojis commonly found next to it.
It’s not even the best emoji: a pleading face, an emoji that will most likely go with just about any heart.
What is remarkable is how strongly ๐ค and ๐ฅบ are aligned.

The divergent n-grams of the White Heart give us an idea of โโwhy the Pleading Face is almost three times more likely to appear next to him than his next most common compatriot, the Blue Heart.

Significant words here include “angel,” “good night,” “peace,” and “remember,” which, taken together, reflect a tribute to the one who has died.
These phrases do not transcend the common words “love”, “gratitude”, “birthday” and “happy” that are found in almost everyone, but rather include a significant minority of use cases.
What does brown heart emoji mean ๐ค
In an effort to standardize what color shapes are available in the emoji set, a brown heart was added to the emoji keyboard in 2019 along with ๐ซ Brown square and ๐ค Brown circle.
It is the least popular of all hearts, although it has its own uses.

While 81.5% of the top 200 terms for Brown Heart are the same as โค๏ธ Red Heart, the differences are mostly related to discussions of race (black, brown, skin, and color), and we also see phrases for food and drink, especially “chocolate” and “coffee”.

What does broken heart emoji mean ๐
๐ A broken heart is the only heart with traditionally negative emotional connotations. It is also the only heart in our analysis that does not have the word or phrase “love” as it is word or phrase # 1.
The N-grams associated with Broken Heart have the least in common with those of โค๏ธ Red Heart: only 69% of their top n-grams are shared.
It may seem obvious, but Broken Heart is the emotional opposite of โค๏ธ Red Heart.

Taken together, the best emojis used in conjunction with a broken heart create the impression of sadness (๐ Pensive face, ๐ข Crying face, ๐ช Sleepy face), discomfort (, Sad but joyful face, ๐ฃ Persistent face) and awkwardness (๐ Face with tears of joy, Slightly smiling face.
๐ New Moon Face is in the top 20 broken heart emoji and is not included in any others.
Tell it to my heart โฃ๏ธ
Based on the associations of words and emojis, each heart has more in common than what sets them apart. Our results do show the following differences.
- โค๏ธ Red Heart and โฅ ๏ธ Heart Suit – hearts that are most likely to be used in a flirty manner ๐๐น
- ๐ A broken heart is used to express sadness, discomfort, and embarrassment. This is the only heart that does not convey positive emotions.
- Hearts with a variety of embellishments (eg ๐ Sparkling Heart and ๐ Spinning Hearts) are commonly used with โจ sequins (and each other) for complex and aesthetic expressions of affection, appreciation, and gratitude.
- ๐ The purple heart is disproportionately used by BTS ARMY fans, ๐ The green heart is also widely used by NCT โโfans. ๐ฐ๐ท๐จโ๐ค๐ถ
- ๐ Blue Heart can be considered the most neutral heart commonly used by brands for Twitter marketing.
- ๐ค The brown heart is commonly used to discuss topics related to race ๐ง๐ฝ๐ง๐พ๐ง๐ฟ
- ๐ค “White heart” is often used to discuss a person leaving โฐ๏ธ๐น
- If each heart could be expressed with one emoji, it would be ๐ฅบ Pleading face. It is often used with every type of heart.
This tells us that there is no one way to use any heart emoji, and no guide can tell you otherwise.
As for Mr. Mayer’s claim that โฅ ๏ธ A heart suit is more suitable for a man than โค๏ธ Red heart? No matter how humorous this statement may be, we simply cannot confirm it with any data.
Love the one you want to love and use the heart that speaks to you. This is what everyone else is doing.
Search Emojis: