I cut them out on fabric now and actually laid them out on my flannel board in my office (they don't know it is a flannel board or what I use it for--grins).
This is the pix layout with the roughly cut hearts. Over lunch hour I will start to cut out the hearts and probably heat n bond them to the background fabric. I was "told" to do the blanket stitch on them from a friend since they like it better than needle turn. It's my fault...I DID say that I need to work on that stitch more.