Claudio Braga and Stephen Kingsley were on target as a resurgent Hearts won 2-0 away from home to slip past Falkirk to move six points clear at the top of William Hill Premier League.
Buoyed by ending their four-game winless streak with last week’s triumph against title rivals Celtic, the Jambos took an early lead through Braga.
Hearts – who survived a Burns penalty just before half-time – had to dig deep to preserve their lead before substitute Kingsley’s brilliant strike on 77 minutes destroyed Burns’ hopes of getting back into the game.
Having failed to score in their previous three matches, Falkirk made four changes to the side that lost 3-0 to Hibernian as Sam Hart, Kyle Wilson, Alfredo Adjeman and Henry Cartwright were added.
Claudio Braga opened the scoring a minute after the opening kick
Hearts boss Derek McInnes fielded the same team that started the 2-1 win at Celtic Park and the league leaders got off to a flying start by opening the scoring after just 65 seconds.
Laurence Shankland’s powerful strike from the edge of the box was deflected onto the underside of the crossbar by Scott Bain and the Falkirk keeper failed to recover in time to prevent Braga following up and heading in the loose ball from four yards.
After overcoming this early setback, the Burns began to gain a foothold and Jambos keeper Alexander Shvolou had to do smart to get hold of Calvin Miller’s shot that deflected off Michael Steinwender.
A couple of dangerous crosses into the Hearts box in the space of a few minutes forced Craig Halkett and then Steinwender to drag the ball out from behind for corners.
After a run of four without a win, Hearts have now secured back-to-back wins
However, the visitors continued to pose a threat and Shankland curled just behind the back post after Braga brought him down the left, just inside the penalty area.
Shankland then opened up another opportunity from a tight angle after good work from Alexandros Kiziridis and Braga to set him up.
At the other end, Filip Lisa sent a shot wide of the goal from 20 meters.
It came to a point two minutes before half-time when Falkirk had a penalty saved.
Wilson raced onto the ball from Agieman and rounded Schwallow, but Harry Milne slid in to block the striker’s attack with a forearm in front of the line. After a VAR review, no spot-kick was awarded as the left-back’s arm was deemed to be stuck in his body.
Just before the hour mark, Hearts winger Kiziridis saw a shot deflected behind by Hart and from the resulting corner, Braga saw a quick header flicked wide by Bain.
Kingsley replaced Milne in the 74th minute and netted within three minutes by slotting home brilliantly from 20 yards, leaving the traveling support in raptures.