Pidgin Smilies Rose and Other Tweaks Thereof

The thing we do ^_^ I will help you get started.

For you the easiest way will be editing the smileys directly from the folder they are found in. For peace of mind do backup the folder containing the smileys by making a copy to the desktop, for example.
--Do not change the name of the folder nor the smileys--

|This is the path where the smileys are found
[Drive]\PortableApps\PidginPortable\App\Pidgin\pixmaps\pidgin\emotes\default

How to Change the Color
Program: GIMP Portable
URL: https://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_pictures/gimp_portable
Description: GIMP is an image manipulation software.

Drag the smiley directly to GIMP. Doing this will save you the task of manually creating a new file. In the case you do create a new file make sure this has a transparent background and the image size is the same as the smiley.

Now go to Colors/Hue-Saturation This will open the Hue-Saturation windows options. Since we just want to manipulate the color red under Select Primary Colors to Adjust select R [Red]. Now under Adjust Selected Color play around with the Hue dial and watch the magic happen.

NOTE: If when selecting Hue-Saturation no option widows comes forth & at the bottom of the image window you see a message that reads "Hue-Saturation operates only on RGB layers" do the following Image/Mode/RGB You will be able to use the Hue-Saturation tool now.

Saving The Smiley
So pidgin is able to use the edited smiley and conserve the image qualities save it as its native file format. After you edit the smiley you will see a new option under File which will allow you to overwrite the file source [the image you dragged into GIMP] applying your changes and maintaining the image's file format File/Overwrite (filename.fileformat)

So She Can See It Too
Smileys are not sent from your IM client to the recipient; what is sent is a series of characters/symbols that will have the recipient IM client display the associated smiley. So she is able to see the blue rose you will have to replace the smiley folder on her copy of Pidgin Portable with a copy of your smiley folder, the one that includes the edited smileys. Now it should be yellow roses back and forth ^_^