Summary: With use of a variational principle, we investigate a role of breathing width degree of freedom in the effective theory of interacting vortices in a trapped single-component Bose-Einstein condensates in two dimensions, under strong repulsive cubic nonlinearity. For the trial function, we choose a product of two vortex functions, assuming a pair interaction, and employ the amplitude form of each vortex function in the Padé approximation, which accommodates a hallmark of the vortex core. We obtain the Lagrange equation for the interacting vortex-core coordinates coupled with the time-derivative of width and also its Hamilton formalism by having recourse to a non-standard Poisson bracket. By solving the Hamilton equation, we find rapid radial breathing oscillations superposed on the slower rotational motion of vortex cores, consistent with numerical solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation. In higher-energy states of two vortex systems, the breathing width degree of freedom plays the role of a kicking in the kicked rotator, and generates chaos with a structure of sea-urchin needles. The by-products of the present variational approach include: (1) the charge-dependent logarithmic inter-vortex interaction multiplied with a pre-factor, which depends on the scalar product of a pair of core-position vectors; (2) the charge-independent short-range repulsive inter-vortex interaction and spring force.