by Chris Cieslik and John McLaren
Answer: BASED ON DELECTABILITY
Answers Used
  • COMMON LAW
  • EERO SAARINEN
  • GREENWICH MERIDIAN
  • PLYMOUTH ROCK
  • RAT RACE
  • WIDE EYED
  • CLEAN ROOM
  • FILM GEEK
  • FRANCIS BACON
  • HAMBURGER HELPER
  • NEW LOWS
  • SNOW LEOPARD

For each color of candy heart, every heart in the picture has one of two letter labels, a single letter and a bigram. These letters can be inserted between the words of two answers to form the names of a fictional couple.

CLEAN[de]ROOMPLYMOUTH[e]ROCK
FILM[ar]GEEKGREENWICH[o]MERIDIAN
FRANCIS[im]BACONCOMMON[a]LAW
HAMBURGER[ac]HELPEREERO[s]SAARINEN
NEW[il]LOWSRAT[a]RACE
SNOW[al]LEOPARDWIDE[v]EYED

Every candy heart occurs at least once in the ring of hearts around the pile. For each heart, solvers should take the answer that heart was inserted into, and index into it by the number of occurrences of that heart in the pile. The beginning and direction of the answer are intentionally withheld; reading from the upper-left AC and proceeding clockwise reveals the answer BASED ON DELECTABILITY.

HeartCountAnswerLetter
AC4HAMBURGER HELPERB
DE4CLEAN ROOMA
S5EERO SAARINENS
AR6FILM GEEKE
AL11SNOW LEOPARDD
E5PLYMOUTH ROCKO
A6COMMON LAWN
AL11SNOW LEOPARDD
AR6FILM GEEKE
IL4NEW LOWSL
AR6FILM GEEKE
IM5FRANCIS BACONC
A3RAT RACET
DE4CLEAN ROOMA
AC4HAMBURGER HELPERB
O7GREENWICH MERIDIANI
IL4NEW LOWSL
O7GREENWICH MERIDIANI
A3RAT RACET
V6WIDE EYEDY