I'm glad to hear you gave it another go!
Honestly, it's quite possible to get used to the rhythm after some repetition of playing. Being a man with no rhythm personally, I sucked at it to start but hours of playtesting it during building allowed me to reach the 9th heart (the basic win heart before the evil final challenge).
Just to confirm how it works, the heartbeat gets quicker with each 'in time' click you perform or slower with mistimed clicks, requiring you to adjust your speed accordingly. The BPM doesn't change at a linear rate, it changes by 10 up to 100bpm, then by 5 up to 140bpm, after that it only changes by 2 per click. So you do need to slightly adjust your rhythm as you reach those markers. With each new heart the max BPM increases by 10 too, which is when the heart pops.
That is the defib, yes, it's present on certain levels. It 'charges' when you go over 140bpm (you'll hear it with audio) and if you mess up it'll zap the heart and lower the bpm back to 120. You'll need a consistent click rate to progress.
I'm not that keen on the blood to be honest, it was originally just sparkly particles but I got experimenting and just left it in.
