Nice. Only had 6 left, after having to get two scrolls prematurely. I assume you say 10 is the max, because you got all the available bonus gold before having to use heart scrolls?
Yea, you have to get all of the gold before using the hearts. Someone else posted a perfect game with this many hearts, so I'm just assuming it's the perfect score.
I almost aborted mid-game because I had to get a heart, thinking that I still had more gold to pick up; however, I don't think I ran across any more gold.