There's no right or wrong way to romance Aeran! If you like how your playthrough is going, I would keep it the way it is. But if you're looking for a more standard romance, high approval + high romance is the way to go.
It's hard to say at this time how old saves are going to work with Episode 3; it depends on whether any major game-breaking bugs come up for Episode 1 and Episode 2 in the future. I think both episodes are stable at this point, but the game is very large and things can be missed. Ideally I want to keep the transition as smooth as possible so folks don't have to replay from the beginning, but it's not a 100% guarantee. Keep an eye on patch notes--they'll tell you if restarts are required based on the date your save was made.