No image in record list

You might try defaulting the record icon to a small (like 10px * 10px) transparent PNG image - though I suspect it won't result in much of a space savings as it seems to me like the size of the row of record listings is not determined by the size of the icon.

Does that mean you do not want an icon while displaying the record list?

You must have an icon for each record in a feed list. The above suggestion of uploading a small transparent image seems like a good workaround, however.