About your suggestion ("playing with the ice cream"), I tried and thought about some possibilities, but none became so interesting so far. Let's see:
1 - color: Best color from the pastel palette for the ice cream sure is the soft red that's been used, since it's the color that atracts most of the attention (the warmer the color, the more it seems to be close from the viewer). The soft blue of the spoon makes a perfect match with the soft red from the ice cream as you can realise visually - that's because they are complementary colors, effect that also can be explained scientifically). The soft yellow of entry #43 surely makes the best contrast to the soft red color from the ice cream and blue color from the spoon and harmonize everything, considering it is the third of the three primary colors too. I haven't found a better combination between these colors (and I love it).
2 - expression: I can't imagine a simple expression cuter than that. The closed mouth and left eye suggest a calm character that calls for affection by the opened eye, which has to stand out from the other elements of the face. In addition an open mouth would be bigger and would compete with the opened eye. The minimal concept asks for the minimum number of elements, so I prefer not to add other ones.
3 - "body": I tried other body shapes for the ice cream, but they affect the whole layout of entry #43. The original shape I used is simple and compact, emphasizing the face expression, and reminds better a portion caught by a spoon, which helps better to imagine it coming into our mouth.
4 - recipient: The spoon (in fact part of it) makes the ice cream more proeminent than any other recipient. A bigger one would affect the whole hierarchy of the design and the ice cream character would lose importance in the context.
Well, maybe I didn't think about other possibilities. I'm not sure the design misses something at the suggested aspect, but I'm open for suggestions.
No, I think you're correct the more I think about it. The expression is adorable, the colors are perfect, as well as the spoon. I was thinking more about the body, making it look like it was maybe dripping, but now that I think about it, I think it will take away from the elegance of the logo. I really love what you have done, and 43 is still my favorite. Is there anyway to incorporate the slogan into the emblem type of 43? If not, there is no problem, I would just like to see how it would come out. Thanks!