I don't want to have /etc/profile.d/vte.sh on my machine: I don't want these functions to be loaded by my shells.

However, "dnf remove vte-profile" says it'll remove 70 packages.

The reason is that vte291, the library implementing a terminal emulator widget, requires it.
Well, not really requires - it has "Requires: vte-profile" line in the specfile, even though it'll work just fine without vte-profile package.

Specfile actually supports weaker forms of conveying that a package is recommended, but not required to be installed. See https://rpm.org/docs/4.20.x/manual/spec.html:

See also https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/WeakDependencies/

Please change vte291.spec along the lines of:

-Requires: vte-profile
+Suggests: vte-profile