You could try using several regexps to only search outside angle brackets:
function wpse159789_posts_search( $search, $query ) {
if ( ! preg_match( '/wp_posts.post_content LIKE \'%(.+)%\'/', $search, $matches, PREG_OFFSET_CAPTURE ) ) {
return $search;
}
$q_search = esc_sql( preg_quote( stripslashes( $matches[1][0] ) ) );
$regexs = array();
$regexs[] = '^' . $q_search;
$regexs[] = '^[^<]+' . $q_search;
$regexs[] = '<[^>]*>' . $q_search;
$regexs[] = '<[^>]*>[^<]+' . $q_search;
$regex = 'wp_posts.post_content RLIKE \'' . implode( '\' OR wp_posts.post_content RLIKE \'', $regexs ) . '\'';
$search = substr( $search, 0, $matches[0][1] ) . $regex . substr( $search, $matches[0][1] + strlen( $matches[0][0] ) );
return $search;
}
add_filter( 'posts_search', 'wpse159789_posts_search', 10, 2 );
I'm not sure this covers all cases, but seems to work on limited testing ... (it'd be a lot simpler if MySQL regexp supported look behind/ahead).