Heart-to-heart talks are the core means for college counselors to fulfill their ideological and political education responsibilities, a key bridge connecting teachers and students emotionally, and a critical path to implement the fundamental task of moral education. In the new era, college students have diverse ideological concepts and multi-dimensional growth needs, making traditional heart-to-heart talk models incompatible with the new requirements of ideological and political education. Based on the practical work of college counselors, this paper defines the core connotations and coupling relationship between heart-to-heart talks and ideological and political education, analyzes the practical dilemmas of counselors’ heart-to-heart talks in content, methods, capabilities and mechanisms, systematically expounds the key artistic points of heart-to-heart talks throughout the whole process, puts forward targeted strategies to enhance the effectiveness of ideological and political education, and verifies the practical paths with typical cases of college student management, so as to provide theoretical support and practical reference for college counselors to optimize heart-to-heart talks and improve the pertinence and effectiveness of ideological and political education.