How to send information from Activity to Widget in Kotlin?

Question

My MainActivity class:

package com.example.fastview

import android.content.Intent
import android.os.Bundle
import android.os.Handler
import android.os.Looper
import android.widget.Button
import android.widget.EditText
import android.widget.ImageView
import android.widget.TextView
import androidx.appcompat.app.AppCompatActivity
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder
import com.google.gson.annotations.SerializedName
import com.squareup.picasso.Picasso
import okhttp3.*
import java.io.IOException

class MainActivity : AppCompatActivity() {


    override fun onCreate(savedInstanceState: Bundle?) {
        super.onCreate(savedInstanceState)
        setContentView(R.layout.activity_main)
        val submitButton = findViewById<Button>(R.id.btn_click_me)
        val result = findViewById<TextView>(R.id.textView)
        val image = findViewById<ImageView>(R.id.profilePhoto)
        val imageView: ImageView = findViewById(R.id.profilePhoto)

        submitButton.setOnClickListener {
            val intent = Intent(this, SubCount::class.java)
            val extras = Bundle()
            extras.putString("payload", "test")
            intent.putExtras(extras)
            startService(intent)
            println("payload pushed")
        }

My SubCount (widget) class:

package com.example.fastview

import android.app.PendingIntent
import android.appwidget.AppWidgetManager
import android.appwidget.AppWidgetProvider
import android.content.Context
import android.content.Intent
import android.content.Intent.getIntent
import android.os.Handler
import android.os.Looper
import android.widget.RemoteViews
import com.google.gson.GsonBuilder
import okhttp3.*
import java.io.IOException


/**
 * Implementation of App Widget functionality.
 */

const val WIDGET_SYNC = "WIDGET_SYNC"
class SubCount : AppWidgetProvider() {

    override fun onUpdate(
        context: Context,
        appWidgetManager: AppWidgetManager,
        appWidgetIds: IntArray
    ) {

        // There may be multiple widgets active, so update all of them
        for (appWidgetId in appWidgetIds) {
            updateAppWidget(context, appWidgetManager, appWidgetId)
        }
    }

    override fun onReceive(context: Context, intent: Intent?) {


        if(WIDGET_SYNC == intent?.action)
        {
            val appWidgetId = intent.getIntExtra("appWidgetId",0)
            updateAppWidget(context, AppWidgetManager.getInstance(context), appWidgetId)
        }

        val bundle = intent?.extras
        println(bundle)

        val payload = intent?.getStringExtra("payload")
        println("----- [ PAYLOAD BEGIN ] ------")
        println(payload)
        println("----- [ PAYLOAD END ] -------")
        super.onReceive(context, intent)
    }
}

internal fun updateAppWidget(
    context: Context,
    appWidgetManager: AppWidgetManager,
    appWidgetId: Int
) {

    val intent = Intent(context, SubCount::class.java)

    intent.action = WIDGET_SYNC

    intent.putExtra("appWidgetId", appWidgetId)
    val pendingIntent = PendingIntent.getBroadcast(context, 0, intent, 0)

    val views = RemoteViews(context.packageName, R.layout.sub_count)

    views.setOnClickPendingIntent(R.id.iv_sync, pendingIntent)
    appWidgetManager.updateAppWidget(appWidgetId, views)
}

In my MainActivity class, I have code (didn't include it here) that querys the YouTube API and retrieves information. I want to send that information to my widget. My widget currently has a sync buenter code heretton (WIDGET_SYNC) that (I believe) calls the updateAppWidget function. However, when I try to set the intent in MainActivity (payload), it's always null. In other words, the data extras doesn't contain what I sent in MainActivity. Any advice?