A forced apology teaches the script, not the repair
Requiring an apology is fast, visible, and satisfies the adult audience. What it does for the child who gives it, and for the child who receives it, is less clear.
A young child compelled to say sorry learns that the word ends the episode. That is a genuine social skill and worth having. It is not the same as understanding what the other person experienced, and the two are easily confused by everyone present.
Repair beats vocabulary
Asking what would help tends to produce something concrete: rebuilding the knocked-over tower, fetching the ice pack, giving back the toy. Concrete repair is within a young child's reach in a way that articulating remorse is not, and it gives the injured child something better than a word.
The delay is not defiance
Children frequently cannot apologise while still upset themselves, which is read as stubbornness and is usually capacity. The apology offered twenty minutes later, unprompted, is worth more than the one extracted at the scene — and it happens more often than most adults expect, because they have already moved on.