Is this for canning whole tomatoes or for sauce?

For sauce, hands down I would use a combination of tomatoes - more than two or three or four - I usually taste the variety raw and if it has flavor, in the pot it goes. Sometimes, the variety you grew last year, might not taste the same this year. I like a combo of a couple paste (plum) and a few heirlooms or open-pollinated (OP) varieties. I don't grow hybrids anymore.

For whole tomatoes - the old time variety -Rutgers is the one my grandma used.

My favorite plum - for eating fresh or canning -is "Polish Linguisa".
It is a large sausage shape plum with outstanding flavor.

-gloria

want a determinate plant for canning, acidic and assertive flavor and only red tomatoes

That means you have literally thousands of varieties to choose from if growing from seed but it is a bit late for that - possible but late. Still 100's to choose from depending on what transplants are available to you locally.

So growing from seed or using plants? How many plants total? Just one determinate plant or several? One wouldn't give you enough for canning.

It's a waste of time to list lots of suggestions if none of them are available to you so why not make a list of the plants available locally that you might be interested in and post it? That way we can tell you what we think of a particular variety.

Dave

I remember beefsteak being excellent as a child.

I don't remember beefsteak being an excellent child, or any other kind of child. (Sorry, could not resist.)

Beefsteak is an indeterminate, and they are still around. If you'd like to grow them, look for Ponderosa (red or pink), Crimson Cushion, or Henderson's Ponderosa. Those are other names it is known by (and there may be more).

Betsy

Again, I agree with Gardengal. I grow rutgers for canning purposes and it's not at all too late to start some from seed if you live in Michigan.