I do agree that
most girls won't date shorter guys, but i've noticed the ones that do seem more often in the 5ft 7 to 5ft 10 range.
you might be trying to think logically and think to yourself as a 5ft 3 guy I'd have a better chance of getting with a 5ft 5 girl than a 5ft 7 girl due to less inches between you ....but If you were thinking like that I would at least challenge that belief and ask out 5ft 7+ girls too ...because it's possible you might be wrong.
On Paper the girls least likely to rule you out on height [as i'm sure you know] are the girls who are shorter than you. but tbh, I think at least 30% of girls below 5ft 3 would still rule you out on height judging from seeing shorter girls talk about this on forums over the years.
Also you should never just accept generalizations or stereotypes like "girls won't date shorter guys" without trying it out first and seeing if it's true for YOU. Often these generalizations do have a lot of truth in them and can be true for most people, but sometimes they just don't apply very well for certain individuals.
When I used to be into PUA like 5 years ago in London I remember meeting this Indian guy. Facially he was well below average, and I remember thinking that this dude is going to do very very badly, ....yet somehow he did the best out of all us,and ended up kissing some girl on the street and going on an instant date with this other hot girl. I was absolutely SHOCKED!!
The vast vast majority of guys of that attractiveness would not be able to achieve that, but for some reason ..the rules just didn't apply for him. Looks definitely matter, but for a small amount of lucky individuals it seems not to be the case.
Regarding the height thing, don't be too quick to accept they won't be interested on the basis of your height without asking out, and being rejected a good number of taller girls first, and then comparing that with the amount of smaller girls who reject you.