I counted, I have 322 Candy Crush “friends”, officially that is more friends than I have on Facebook and yet still no one sends me lives. I constantly request more friends. It’s frustrating that I know friends ask for lives and never send them. I send about 70-100 lives a day, and receive about 11. Clearly, this is a joke.
My suggestion: remove this feature and just give an extra 20 lives a day.