Like TMK17 said, that's by design. Widgets are meant to be "quick view" things. You can restart the timeout by interacting with the widget (tap the screen, etc) but that's it.
Thanks TMK17 and jim_m_58 for your quick answer. Unfortunately, I don't like it !
We should be able to keep a widget active. For exemple, Garmin heart rate widget should be kept active as long as I need it without being obliged to start an activity. Real time heart rate monitoring without recording would be something interesting.
Simple Graph only shows HR history and doesn't do "every second updates" for even seconds. My Simple Activity also updates the hr in the same way Simple Heart does.