Heme groups are good-sized organic molecules, but the important thing is that at their center, there's an ionized iron atom, which is capable of binding to various other things, allowing things like hemoglobin transporting oxygen in blood, and myoglobin temporarily holding onto oxygen the muscle cells will use soon. In both cases the heme groups are bound up in a globular protein (a globin) that surrounding structure is very different in the two proteins. Myoglobin is related to hemoglobin, which is in blood: myoglobin has a heme group while hemoglobin has four heme groups. So it really is the protein in the meat, as you guessed! But we can understand better than that. Red meat (or dark meat) is myoglobin-rich, from "slow-twitch" endurance muscles, while white meat has little myoglobin, and is from "fast-twitch" muscles. As the USDA says, the protein myoglobin is the main cause of the red color of meat it achieves this color when exposed to oxygen.
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