Use CSS
<h3 style="padding:0; margin:0"><span style="font-size: 14px;">XXXXXXXXX</span></h3>
Ideally, you would define the CSS in a separate file
h3, h4 {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
For further control you can add class names (so it doesn't apply to all h3s) and chose padding/margin sides
<h3 class="news">...</h3>
h3.news {
padding-bottom: 2px;
padding-top: 5px;
margin-left: 3px;
}