Os símbolos % são especiais em uma entrada crontab , portanto você não pode usá-los diretamente na sua string date format.
man 5 crontab escreve
The sixth field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be run. The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or
%character, will be executed by/bin/shor by the shell specified in theSHELLvariable of the cronfile. Percent-signs (%) in the command, unless escaped with backslash (\), will be changed into newline characters, and all data after the first%will be sent to the command as standard input.