macOS on VMware requires at least 2 CPUs otherwise it may kernel panic especially as the number of cores is scaled up. This is known behaviour and VMware Fusion explicitly displays a message warning about possible problems with a single CPU. So at a minimum use 2 CPUs in the VMware Processor settings dialog.

The default VM templates do use 1 CPU / 2 cores which is a minimum and will work correctly but that is a lowest end spec for the VM and host. If you need to start scaling to more cores then increase the CPU count to be at least 2.

For example:

4 cores = 2 CPU / 2 cores
8 cores = 2 CPU / 4 cores or 4 CPU / 2 cores
etc ...

There ares some other configurations that can cause issues, for example 1 CPU / 3 cores will not boot. This is even observed on VMware Fusion running on genuine Apple hardware. If at anytime you modify the number of cores you want, it is best to set CPUS to as multiple of 2 and then specify the individual cores per CPU.

This can affect both Intel and AMD based hosts systems.