No events in heartbeat topic if no change activity for SQL Server

Hi

I've noticed the following behavior on different instances and SQL servers.

In short, for SQL Server, we only seem to see heartbeat events in the heartbeat topic if there is data movement in the SQL Server table.  If we don't change any records, then heartbeat events stop until we change some records.

Everything's working fine on all setups, no exceptions, error etc.. Change events flowing no problem.

We had the expectation that we would always see an event in the heartbeat topic according to our set interval if things are connected and ok.  Would this be the right assumption?

We had plans to use the heartbeat topic to be able to be easily notified of any loss of connectivity with the SQL Server, but we can't seem to rely on it..