It would be handy to be able to customize the format-string for elfeed-summary--render-feed similar to how Gnus allows it.
The usage for such a feature would be to customize the layout of the string besides the padding or to customize the character used to frame the unread count.
Personally I would do something like this:
(setq gnus-group-line-format (concat "%M%S%p%P%5y "
(propertize ;(all-the-icons-faicon "envelope-o")
(all-the-icons-material "mail")
'display '(raise 0.0))