.htaccess Remove first php url parameter if second exist

This is my .htaccess code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/pages/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)(/([^/]+))? pages.php?PAGE=$1&LINK=$3 [L]

*where $1 = profile and $3 = john-smith

This is works fine rewriting like https://example.com/profile/john-smith but I need a second rewrite rule like https://example.com/john-smith only if the second parameter that contains john-smith exist.

Thank you!

UPDATE: (Complete rules of my .htaccess file)

# protect files beginning with .
RewriteRule /\.(.*) - [NC,F]

# redirect HTTPS
RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} 80
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.com/$1 [R,L]

# No root access without index.* and other security
RewriteEngine On
Options All -Indexes
RewriteBase /
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html index.htm
ErrorDocument 404 https://example.com/pages.php?PAGE=404

# Prevent upload malicious PHP files
<FilesMatch “\.(php|php\.)$”> 
Order Allow,Deny 
Deny from all 
</FilesMatch>

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME}\.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.php [QSA,L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/pages/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/]+)(/([^/]+))? pages.php?PAGE=$1&LINK=$3 [QSA, L]

RewriteRule ^([^/]+)(/([^/]+))? pages.php?PAGE=$1&LINK=$3 [L]

The "problem" with this is that it will also match a request for /john-smith (the 2nd group is optional), but rewrites the request to pages.php?PAGE=john-smith&LINK=, instead of pages.php?LINK=john-smith as required. For this you will need a separate rule. It also matches /profile/john-smith/anything, discarding /anything but still rewrites the request (a many to one relationship) which potentially opens your site up to spammers.

Assuming you are not allowing dots (.) in the URL path segments (as per your examples) then there's no need to check that the request does not map to a file. eg. a request for /profile/john-smith could never map to file if your files all have file extensions, so the filesystem check is redundant.

Try the following instead:

# Rewrite exactly one path segment
# eg. /john-smith to pages.php?LINK=john-smith
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)$ pages.php?LINK=$1 [L]

# Rewrite exactly two path segments
# eg. /profile/john-smith to pages.php?PAGE=profile&LINK=john-smith
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/pages/ [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^([^/.]+)/([^/.]+)$ pages.php?PAGE=$1&LINK=$2 [L]

The NC flag on the preceding RewriteCond directive is probably redundant.

([^/.]+) - I've changed the capturing subpattern to also exclude dots. And the second rule matches exactly two path segments, not one or two path segments, as in your example.