"The Heart of Me" was written by Miike Snow's three members, Christian Karlsson, Pontus Winnberg and Andrew Wyatt, for the band's third studio album, iii (2016).

[3] He had previously aimed to present a "consistent character" during concerts, which resulted in the band's second studio album Happy to You (2012) holding a "more uniform sound".

[9] The writer deemed it a suitable for "the year's warmer days" and concluded that it "highlights the group's ability to purvey upbeat, intricate production with aplomb".

[9] While reviewing iii, The Line of Best Fit's Grant Rindner noted that the song and "Genghis Khan" exhibit "earworm melodies and inescapable hooks".

[13] Rindner recognized the former's "powerful piano chords and crunchy drums", which they felt evoked "a stripped-down Passion Pit at their absolute peak".

[13] PopMatters critic Ryan Dieringer felt "The Heart of Me" recalled Spoon's album They Want My Soul (2014), writing that "Miike Snow do Eno-esque drums almost better than Eno".

[11] Eric Renner Brown, writing for Entertainment Weekly, deemed the song "vibrant", elaborating that it "sounds perfectly engineered for Spotify's running feature or the sprawling pastures of a music festival".

[28] While reviewing the album, Dylan Stewart of The Music named "The Heart of Me" as "proof" that the band has "lost little ground in delivering their latest record".

[29] Comparing it to previous singles "Genghis Khan" and "My Trigger", Sean Maunier of Metro Weekly opined that while the song is not as memorable as the former two, "it pulses with synths and some interesting swells".

[30] DIY critic David Beech felt "The Heart of Me", along with the two aforementioned singles, "possess a pop pomp that's been hinted at only slightly in the past".

"[31] In a negative review, Rachel Brodsky of Spin dismissed its "cheery falseness", stating that it "sounds ready to be slapped into a Target commercial, as if its only sincere yearning is for royalty checks".