Excel VBA - Highlight specific characters in a string

I have this in a cell formatted Wingdings2 (example)
Activecell.Value = Chr(188) & Chr(189) & Chr(154) & Chr(152)

Edit: It goes that as a UDF (   =GetAttenanceString("C10") for example  )
It works OK when the string is actually entered in the cell. Mystery!


Where the character is Chr(154) I want to color it Red. I'm doing it like this. BUT, although the If condition seems to work the entire string is being colored Red, rather than just the Chr(154). What am I missing here please?

Sub BlankNonAttendingDays()

    For iDay = 1 To 7
        If Mid(ActiveCell.Value, iDay, 1) = Chr(154) Then
            'MsgBox iDay
        
            With ActiveCell.Characters(Start:=iDay, Length:=1).Font
                .Size = 11
                .Color = 192
            End With
        End If

    Next iDay

End Sub

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