How real are virtual particles?

Recently started hearing alot about vacuum energy and virtual particles and I am a little confused about how “real” they are.

It seems virtual particles were initially purely a mathematical concept to make the math of Feynman diagrams easier?

But then a reformulation of schrodingers equation also states that you cannot know exact time and energy and this is where the “buzz” in vacuum energy comes from?

And even further, is it wrong to theorize that these virtual particles sometimes interact with the “real” particle and this is an explanation of why we encounter quantum tunnelling (the unannihlated virtual particle becomes the new “real” particle)?