4x4 cube shell

Created a 4x4 cube shell, with cubes half the size of the player heart cube.  Number of connections required goes up exponentially, so with 108 connections the shell really sucks up fps.  Perhaps there is some way to optimize this?
Regardless, I've got plenty of ideas for variations on this gameplay element, with less cubes.
Excited to begin designing and implementing them +

The possibilities are endless, the trick is getting a nice theme and sticking to it.  Here's your template, all you need is the paint bucket ; )