Artifacts between layers importing from illustrator

Hi,

I have had trouble with filling lineart in Photoshop. 

I've made my lineart in Illustrator and imported it to Photoshop to color.

However, the lines, which have been expanded already in Illustrator, have artifacts in between the fill layer and the lineart layer.

I''ve provided some images below as to elaborate on the situation. The artifacts are much more visible from the zoomed out file than zoomed in.

I've already tried expanding the color layer, and blurring the color/ line layers to blend better. Preferably I'd like to find a way to automatically fill these lines in. 

There is one more piece of info I'd like to add. The Lineart has been colored using a mask. The artifacts aren't as apparent when the lineart is without the mask. I've already attempted to merge the colored lineart into one layer, with no luck removing the artifacts.

Let me know what needs to be done.

Thanks!

-JD

Windows 11 Home 21H2. Latest AI & PS Versions.