Heather would be a fine place to camp -- you can certainly find some flat spots on the snow. And it will cut off a significant amount of time on the leg carrying all your gear. It's nice, because once you get to the hump, Heather is just down the (fairly steep) slope.
I have never been down to Aster Lake. Each time I've traveled through there we were bent on moving along. I think technically camping is not permitted at Heather -- at least it was years ago. But of course that is during the summer hiking season.
When I stayed in the hut (2 nights), we climbed up to "Ski Alta" peak (11,328') nearly east of Pear Lk. Alta Pk itself is pretty inaccessible from that side in the snow.
Here's a map courtesy of GMap4. Really love the resource -- you can move the map around, zoom in and out, change to satellite, etc, etc.
Here's a link to show how to set up such a map. (It also supports a GPS track, but that's too technical for me.)
