On the hilarious contrary, I only get through the first floor half the time, but if I get through that I always make it to Ballos. This may be because at the beginning of B3, there are two hearts that respawn when you leave and enter the room again, essentially restoring all your health. This means all the other hearts at the beginning of the level are surplus and I can just go back and collect those when I get damaged enough. That's about the limit to my strategy. :x