Text heart symbols
Coloured heart emoji
Love kaomoji
Soft decoration
Heart symbols come in two kinds: text hearts such as ♡ and ❥, which take the colour of the surrounding font, and emoji hearts such as ❤️ and 🩷, which your device draws in colour. Tap any item above to copy it. The difference decides where each one is safe to use — in a TikTok display name, an Instagram bio, or a plain message.
Last updated: 6 August 2026 · COOLMOJI Editorial Team
Text hearts and emoji hearts are not the same character
♡ is U+2661 WHITE HEART SUIT, a plain text symbol from the same family as the card suits. ❤️ is U+2764 HEAVY BLACK HEART followed by an invisible variation selector, U+FE0F, which is the instruction that tells your device “draw this one as a colour emoji”.
That invisible selector matters more than it sounds. Remove it and the very same heart becomes a black text glyph, ❤︎ — which is why a heart copied from one site looks flat and from another looks glossy. Nothing was corrupted; only the selector differs.
Which hearts fit inside a bio
Text hearts are the safer choice for bios and display names, for three reasons that have nothing to do with taste.
| Question | Text heart ♡ | Emoji heart ❤️ |
|---|---|---|
| Takes the font’s colour? | Yes | No, always its own colour |
| Character cost in a limit | Usually one | Often two or more |
| Looks the same everywhere? | Close to it | No — every platform draws its own |
| Survives a plain-text field | Usually | Sometimes stripped |
What each heart colour is understood to mean
Colour carries meaning that the shape does not. These readings are conventions, not rules, but they are consistent enough that picking the wrong colour genuinely changes how a message lands.
- ❤️ Red — romantic love, or plain strong approval. The default.
- 🩷 Pink — affection without romance: friends, family, something sweet.
- 🖤 Black — grief, or an aesthetic choice. Read the context before assuming sadness.
- 🤍 White — purity, minimal aesthetics, and increasingly just “matches my theme”.
- 💚 Green, 💙 Blue, 💛 Yellow — most often team colours, flags or brand palettes rather than feelings.
The text hearts sidestep all of this. ♡ has no colour of its own, so it never contradicts what you wrote.
Building a heart border around a name
A border is just a symbol repeated either side of your text, and the short ones survive the most fields: ♡ name ♡, ˚₊‧ name ‧₊˚, ⋆｡ name ｡⋆. Keep the total short — most name fields cut off long decoration rather than rejecting it, which leaves a lopsided border.
If you want the darker version of this idea, the same trick with skulls and crosses is on our skull symbols page.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my heart appear black instead of red?
You copied the text form, ❤︎, rather than the emoji form, ❤️. They are the same base character; the emoji version carries an extra invisible selector. Copy it again from the grid above to get the colour version.
Which heart symbol is best for a bio?
♡ or ♥ if you want it to match your text and cost the fewest characters; a coloured emoji heart if you want it to stand out. On a tight character limit, the text heart wins.
Can I use heart symbols in a TikTok username?
No. A TikTok username accepts only letters, numbers, full stops and underscores. Hearts work in your display name, which is the part people actually read.
Do heart symbols look the same on iPhone and Android?
Text hearts look nearly identical because they are drawn by the font. Emoji hearts do not — each platform ships its own artwork, so the shape and shade shift between devices.
Where do these symbols come from?
They are all part of the Unicode Standard, which is why they travel between apps at all. You can browse more sets on COOLMOJI.
