Change formatting based on displayed value

I’ve got a list of hyperlinked timestamps in “mm:ss” format and that’s the problem; I only thought it was in the “mm:ss” format. The actual format is “Time,” so when I type in “15:03” intending “15 minutes and 3 seconds,” Excel sees it as “3:03:00 AM.” I’ve tried changing the formatting in the column to actual “mm:ss,” but when I do, Excel converts all of the timestamps based on the functional values, not the characters on display.

Is there any way to convert the formatting of my timestamps to the intended “mm:ss” formatting (or even Text if necessary) based on the displayed characters while maintaining the hyperlinks associated with each? I even tried doing a kludgy concatenation, but even that disregarded the displayed values. As always, thanks in advance for any help!