Hi @Theresa_Herreid and welcome to our adorable Community 😊 The hearts are actually your lives. You have 5 lives and they are restored every 15 minutes (at least it's 15 minutes right now in my game). When you lose all the lives you can ask your friends for more and the lives they send to you are free.
As for the beans, you can use them to buy the shovels before the beginning of the level. 3 shovels cost 200 beans and they are the only booster that can be purchased with beans. To purchase other boosters you will need to use gold bars.
@Theresa_Herreid I just checked my game and it seems you are right. I play this game for years and I didn't realize before that beans are also used for each life 🙂
Hi @Theresa_Herreid there are certain levels that required some magic beans, like the levels that you play with your companion or when you have to beat Rancid, but you can also opt out from using your beans by unclicked on the companion choice on every companion levels or choose ‘ no booster’ option on beat Rancid levels, As shown on this picture for example :
There would be a lot of unhappy players if you had to use beans to play a level. But as @mysticalmysty said, that is where a lot of beans go as people don’t realise you can uncheck them. @firebombmarkus now your beans can stop going down too. Uncheck it