Top of the league by the March international break. Influential midfielder Cammy Devlin is back. And, more crucially, captain and talismanic striker Lawrence Shankland is available again.
Sidelined since January with a hamstring injury, Shankland made his return from the bench in Saturday's narrow win over Dundee.
Although the 30-year-old forward did not provide the decisive moment, his 36-minute cameo highlighted why his comeback is so important for Hearts' title charge.
"Even in the small moments Shankland was involved in, you could see his link-up play," former Hearts head coach Steven Naismith said on BBC's Sportscene.
"His game intelligence was on show and I think that will be big in the coming weeks."
Shankland's relentless scoring form in recent seasons has often meant his link-up play goes under the radar.
He misplaced just one of his 11 passes on Saturday and boasted 100% accuracy in the final third – seven out of seven completed – which allowed Hearts to sustain pressure before Oisin McEntee's winner.
Shankland also had more shots on goal than fellow forward Pierre Landry Kabore and found the target more often than Claudio Braga despite fewer minutes on the pitch.
His influence also becomes clearer when dissecting Hearts' record with and without the striker this season. Their win rate plummets from 73% to 44%.
While Derek McInnes' side have managed to stay top of the tree during Shankland's absence, they lost four of their five league matches without him.
Hearts failed to score in three of those five games without their captain – recent defeats at St Mirren and Kilmarnock (during a spell when Devlin was also missing), plus November's loss at Aberdeen.
With Shankland in the side, McInnes' men have failed to score only once in 18 matches – a goalless draw at Fir Park.
The forward will miss Scotland's upcoming fixtures against Japan and Ivory Coast, instead using the international break to build his fitness ahead of key club matches against Livingston and Motherwell before the league split.
"I've got a bit of time now without games, so I'll use it to get myself in the best shape possible," he told BBC Scotland after the match on Saturday.
"It'll be a lot of hard work over the next couple of weeks, but I'm looking forward to getting back into the fixtures."
