Plugin Testing - how to compile and run Project inside a heavy test? Follow

So, my plugin uses a custom ProgramRunner and I'd like to write a test for it. To do that, I created a testData directory with a sample project. Now I'd like to load that project, compile it and run it(inside the test). To do that, I've tried extending AbstractTestFrameworkIntegrationTest (from what I've seen, JUnit4 tests use this class). Now, AbstractTestFrameworkIntegrationTest extends HeavyPlatformTestCase, so this means I will write heavy tests, which is fine but I still couldn't manage to put it all together and run my custom runner. 

Or is there any other way to execute the project with my ProgramRunner inside a test? It doesn't matter if it is a heavy or light test.