Arduino works with nRF24L01 only when undervolted

This applies only to the 3v3 pin on the Nano which can provide only about 50mA derived from the USB chip. However, this is not what you are doing because you are using purpose built modules to provide 3.3 volts for the nrf24L01 radios.

I have never heard of level shifting being required for the signal pins of the nrf24L01 and these pins are 5v tolerant.

I suggest you set up a simpler test just powering the Nanos through their USB connections and use a simple test program such as is found here: Simple nRF24L01+ 2.4GHz transceiver demo (post #2). Ignore the advice to use a specific library version. If that does not get good results then begin to suspect the nrf24L01 modules.