Rick is the hero because he's the funny bastard who drives all the entertainment in the cartoon. It's a cartoon.

Walter White remains the protagonist no matter how bad he breaks because he drives the plot and instigates all the action in the crime show. It's a fictional crime show.

I think most people take these entertainment products so casually, as if they were fictional entertainment products, that there's really no contradiction or cognitive dissonance in thinking antiheros and fun villains are cool.

I wouldn't want to ever meet a real version of a Judge Dredd or the Emperor of Mankind or whatever, but "that can't be a badass, that's a villain, thinking that's a badass is toxic masculinity", get out of town.