Laser diodes are finikey little devices that drop resistance with heat, they are controlled with the LM317 current driver, see google,
with that i am able to control a blueray diode, dont let the laser diode get hot, ie too much current -- doing so will chew the life out of it..
I would recommend getting separate drivers for each diode, with heat sink
" does the color have anything to do with its ability to make heat?"
will it show the same temperature for each color? Will they all be the same brightness?
I would say each diode is different, but most likely for your purposes I would say dont worry...you get the amps from watt/volt,the light output is relative to boring details of materials.
What you should think about though is "absorption spectrum's" ie, its hard-er for red laser to pop red balloon, cause red balloon reflects red, not absorbs, thats why youtube always pops black balloons, mind you with bluray laser i can burn white paper, since there are colors being absorbed, but the reflection from it leaves spots in my eyes which is very very bad, and IR you cannot see it doing that. safety glasses all times!!
I forget the power of the bluray i think only 50mw, but it ran from 9v with lm317 driver(driver can support 500mW, but idk about the battery), and could burn within seconds (between 1cm from focal point)
laserpointerforums is very informative