These are characters which can be built from multiple glyphs, but they also have a pre-built Unicode point. There are also ligatures that combine multiple characters into a single code point.

The new version of Unicode is slated for release June 21, though you shouldn’t expect to be adding the new emojis to your Instagram captions that night. As Burge notes in a blog post ...

This is a unique “code point,” or hexadecimal (base 16) number within the Unicode world. If you know this Unicode number, you can get Apple to display it in the Character Viewer. (Press the ...