there must be fifty ways to break one's heart; e.g., heart-piercing, heart-wringing, heart-wrenching, heart-rending - heart-rending is sometimes malapropistically rendered as heart-rendering. "The true ground of action is the outrage and deprivation; the injury the father sustains in the loss of his child; the heart-rendering agony he must suffer in the destruction of his dearest hopes."

in any event, I don't think there's a "preferred" form, discounting the lattermost.