To solve this issue, we should first note that the length of a sun year isn't the proper one, as intended:
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Originally Posted by Of the begining of time and its reckoning, Annals of Aman, HoME X
For it was their intention that ten years of the Sun, no more and no less, should be in length as one Year of the Trees had been...
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The shorter year of the Sun was so made because of the greater speed of all growth, and likewise of all change and withering, that the Valar knew should come to pass after the death of the Trees.
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I think that the length of the Sun year is a reiteration of the motive of the Tree year:
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Originally Posted by Of the begining of days, Silmarillion
In seven hours the glory of each tree waxed to full and waned again to naught; and each awoke once more to life an hour before the other ceased to shine.... And each day of the Valar in Aman contained twelve hours
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We have two periods of seven hours, which overlap, making a cycle of twelve hours. Let's see this in the years of the sun structure:
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Originally Posted by Of the begining of time and its reckoning, Annals of Aman, HoME X
...it was their first device that each year of the Sun should contain seven hundred times of sunlight and moonlight, and each of these times should contain twelve hours, each in duration one seventh of an hour of the Trees.
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I would say that the years of the tree represent the archetype, while the years of the sun reflect it, on a lesser scale of magnitude. Seven and twelve are magic numbers in most religions; in christianity too (7:God rests on the seventh day, there are seven gifts of the spirit, Jesus spoke seven times from the cross, and this is even more significant in the Apocalypse; 12: twelve Israeli tribes, 12 apostles). These two numbers reflect perfection, in various stages; a perfection intended by the valar, but which it came not to be in full.