You taste with your brain, so it really does affect the taste to a considerable degree. You can prove this to yourself by just getting someone else to feed you different flavoured sweets (that’s candy if you’re American :D) with your eyes shut.
The bright red colour enhances the whole aesthetic experience, and there’s no real reason to remove it unless it actually is harmful in some way. If it is harmful, then sure, remove it or replace it, but it’s not inherently bad just because it’s artificial/chemical, which are somewhat arbitrary and unobjective categories anyway.
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