rest api xml consume error com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParseException: Unexpected character '"' (code 34) in prolog; expected '<'

I have a simple xml string which i want to pass to other service using restTemplate and want to serialize back to xml But i am getting constant error message com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParseException: Unexpected character '"' (code 34) in prolog; expected '<'

Can you please help me what i am doing wrong -

Xml String

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<note>
  <to>Tove</to>
  <from>Jani</from>
  <heading>Reminder</heading>
  <body>Don't forget me this weekend!</body>
</note>

KafkaTopicListener.java

KafkaListener(topics = "test-topic", groupId = "group-id", containerFactory = "kafkaListenerContainerFactory")
    public void listen(String payload) throws Exception {
        
        System.out.println("KafkaTopicListener.listen : payload ::"+payload.toString());// this is an xml string
        
        HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
        
        headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML);
        headers.setAccept(Arrays.asList(MediaType.APPLICATION_XML));
        
        HttpEntity<String> entity = new HttpEntity<String>(payload, headers);
        
        restTemplate.postForEntity(validationURL, entity, String.class);     
    }

my receiver service(different app running on different port) is

ReceivingClass.java

@RequestMapping(value = "/testByteArray", method = RequestMethod.POST, consumes = "application/xml")
    public void testByteArray(@RequestBody Object payload) throws IOException, ClassNotFoundException {
        
        System.out.println("MailController.testByteArray String::"+payload.toString());
        
    }

I am using jackson-dataformat-xml jar in my dependency for xml parsing.. but getting the parsing exception as below -

2021-03-11 13:01:27.531  WARN 25328 --- [nio-9003-exec-1] .w.s.m.s.DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver : Resolved [org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageNotReadableException: JSON parse error: Unexpected character '"' (code 34) in prolog; expected '<'
 at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [1,1]; nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParseException: Unexpected character '"' (code 34) in prolog; expected '<'
 at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [1,1]]
2021-03-11 13:01:27.764  WARN 25328 --- [nio-9003-exec-2] .w.s.m.s.DefaultHandlerExceptionResolver : Resolved [org.springframework.http.converter.HttpMessageNotReadableException: JSON parse error: Unexpected character '"' (code 34) in prolog; expected '<'
 at [row,col {unknown-source}]: [1,1]; nested exception is com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonParseException: Unexpected character '"' (code 34) in prolog; expected '<'