Uhh....

Yes there is a difference. With the easy/short way, you get a box with one thing in side. That's siding for love and giving the girl the balloon. If you choose to break them up, you have to equip the balloon and then use rock throw on the statues. You can get what seems like between 3 and 7 items as a reward once you pop your balloon. While this isn't hard, it is more time consuming. You've got to hit the statue around 10 times (i never counted) and destroy 5 statues. If you didn't choose to break them up, you can't do damage with rock throw on the statues, and have no reason to waste your time attacking them.