Whenever attempting to place a desert temple in a void world under any circumstances results in a "Failed to place structure" error.
Most other situations allow you to place the structure, even in superflat worlds with only one block of width.
This is not an issue with other structures such as fortresses, which can be generated easily in void worlds.
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Right, forgot to respond. I had tried it in many other worlds, including ones with similar attributes to void worlds, but technically not. One such world was a single grass block plane 128 blocks above the void. The pyramid managed to place in such a world. In the void world, I tried to place a similar massive plane, but it refused to place no longer how large I made it. It could also be because structures were off, although the pyramid was still able to be placed in the nether. Now that you mention it though, I'll do some further testing.
I did some more digging, and it turns out this is a more complicated issue than it seems. I place a massive 384 by 384 grass block plane in a world with no blocks. Not a void world, but a superflat world with all of the blocks removed. When I tried to place a pyramid in this world, it failed every time. Then, I created a world with 128 layers of air and 1 layer of grass blocks. The pyramid was miraculously a success. After that, I removed a massive area of grass blocks, exposing the void. I attempted to place a pyramid, and it worked. The pyramid was directly placed onto the void. When I tested it in the end, I could only place it in areas where the treasure room wasn't exposed. I tried applying this to a block-less world by creating a 128 by 128 by 128 cube. It failed.
The issue seems to be that desert pyramids can only be placed in the overworld when the world has been generated with blocks at least 4 blocks above the void. The world cannot generate with the void exposed at all, or else the desert temple will fail to generate. It can however generate on the void when the specifications are met, and it can't be placed in a world when the specifications are not met whether or not new blocks are placed. It can also miraculously generate in the end, and I'm still not sure how that works.
It looks like MC-254487.
Oh boy, I hope it doesn't have the same fate. That previous place structure issue was marked as a bug they won't fix. I find it so odd that the place command depends on so many specifications. The whole point is to place any structure in any location, but in many cases it fails tremendously. I seriously hope they fix this.
Some structures have special requirements, maybe desert temples are one of them. Have you tried placing down a block of sand, or fill a chunk with sand / sandstone / whatever? Maybe that'll allow it.